<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//NLM//DTD JATS (Z39.96) Journal Archiving and Interchange DTD v1.0 20120330//EN" "JATS-archivearticle1.dtd">
<article xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
  <front>
    <journal-meta>
      <journal-title-group>
        <journal-title>Gold Coast,
Queensland, Australia
" wolfgang.gritz@tib.eu (W. Gritz); anett.hoppe@tib.eu
(A. Hoppe); ralph.ewerth@tib.eu (R. Ewerth)</journal-title>
      </journal-title-group>
    </journal-meta>
    <article-meta>
      <title-group>
        <article-title>On the Impact of Features and Classifiers for Measuring Knowledge Gain during Web Search - A Case Study</article-title>
      </title-group>
      <contrib-group>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Wolfgang Gritz</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Anett Hoppe</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <contrib contrib-type="author">
          <string-name>Ralph Ewerth</string-name>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff0">0</xref>
          <xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">1</xref>
        </contrib>
        <aff id="aff0">
          <label>0</label>
          <institution>L3S Research Center, Leibniz University Hannover</institution>
          ,
          <country country="DE">Germany</country>
        </aff>
        <aff id="aff1">
          <label>1</label>
          <institution>TIB - Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology</institution>
          ,
          <addr-line>Hannover</addr-line>
          ,
          <country country="DE">Germany</country>
        </aff>
      </contrib-group>
      <pub-date>
        <year>2021</year>
      </pub-date>
      <volume>000</volume>
      <fpage>0</fpage>
      <lpage>0003</lpage>
      <abstract>
        <p>Search engines are normally not designed to support human learning intents and processes. The eld of Search as Learning (SAL) aims to investigate the characteristics of a successful Web search with a learning purpose. In this paper, we analyze the impact of text complexity of Web pages on predicting knowledge gain during a search session. For this purpose, we conduct an experimental case study and investigate the in uence of several text-based features and classi ers on the prediction task. We build upon data from a study of related work, where 104 participants were given the task to learn about the formation of lightning and thunder through Web search. We perform an extensive evaluation based on a state-of-the-art approach and extend it with additional features related to textual complexity of Web pages. In contrast to prior work, we perform a systematic search for optimal hyperparameters and show the possible in uence of feature selection strategies on the knowledge gain prediction. When using the new set of features, state-of-the-art results are noticeably improved. The results indicate that text complexity of Web pages could be an important feature resource for knowledge gain prediction.</p>
      </abstract>
      <kwd-group>
        <kwd>eol&gt;Textual Complexity</kwd>
        <kwd>Knowledge Gain</kwd>
        <kwd>Search as Learning</kwd>
        <kwd>Learning Resources</kwd>
        <kwd>Web-based Learning</kwd>
      </kwd-group>
    </article-meta>
  </front>
  <body>
    <sec id="sec-1">
      <title>1. Introduction</title>
      <p>ing was that the time spent on text-based Web pages
had a greater impact on knowledge gain than time spent
Conventional information retrieval systems are usually on video-based Web pages. Gadiraju et al. [7] explored
designed to satisfy an information need. The research the in uence of behavioral features on the learning
outarea Search as Learning (SAL), on the other hand, deals come, and found a positive correlation between the
avwith the assumption that search sessions can also be erage complexity of user queries and their knowledge
driven by a learning intention. Research in the area of gain. Recently, some approaches have been suggested
SAL is not only concerned with the ranking of search that combine several types of features [8, 9]. For
examresults, but also with the detection or prediction of ple, Otto et al. [9] studied the e ect on knowledge gain
the learning intention or even the knowledge state and prediction, when complexity and linguistic features are
knowledge gain [1, 2]. complemented with multimedia features. They achieved</p>
      <p>Vakkari [3] presented a survey of features which indi- slight improvements by adding multimedia features, e.g.,
cate the user’s knowledge and learning needs, but also representing the amount of image and video data on the
knowledge gain during the search process. More recently, screen or the image type (infographics, outdoor
photoga wide variety of features were considered, including raphy, etc.).
resource-based (based on text or multimedia content) A crucial aspect of learning is the appropriateness
or behavioral features. For example, Syed and Collins- of the text for the reader. In his survey,
CollinsThompson [4] have considered document retrieval fea- Thompson [10] has summarized studies that deal with
tures to improve learning outcome for short- and long- the automatic assessment of the reading di culty of
term vocabulary learning. Collins-Thompson et al. [5], texts. Hancke [11] has previously analyzed lexical,
synon the other hand, have studied di erent query types tactic, and morphological features for German, while
and found a correlation between the variety of intrinsic Kurdi et al. [12] investigated features that allow for
conquery types and knowledge gain. Pardi et al. [6] further clusions about the complexity of English texts.
examined the time spent on Web pages with primarily In this paper, we investigate the in uence of text
comtextual or video content and learning outcome. One nd- plexity of Web pages on knowledge gain prediction in a
comprehensive experimental case study. For this purpose,
we present a large set of text-based features of various
types and, furthermore, analyze the impact of di erent
classi ers and feature selection strategies on knowledge
gain prediction. First, the experimental results show that
state-of-the-art results [9] can be signi cantly improved
and, second, that the textual complexity of Web pages can
be a valuable predictor for the classi cation of knowledge
gain. Our contributions can be summarized as follows:</p>
      <p>To measure knowledge gain, the participants were asked
• A large set of features describing textual complex- to solve a 10-item multiple choice test one week
beity of Web pages is presented. fore (t1) and immediately after (t2) the Web search. The
• We conduct an extensive, systematic evaluation knowledge gain is subsequently de ned as the di erence
including multiple classi ers, hyperparameter between the numbers of correct answers of t2 and t1. The
analysis and optimization, as well as feature se- potential range of values for the knowledge gain is
therelection strategies and analyze their impact on fore [− 10, 10]. The average value in t1 was 5.24 ± 1.80
knowledge gain prediction. respectively 7.46 ± 1.43 in t2. The average knowledge
• We demonstrate that the state-of-the-art-results gain was 2.22 ± 1.78 and lies in the range of [− 3, 6].
can be improved, even when only considering
textual complexity features. 2.3. Feature Extraction
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: In In the study, the participants performed free Web
Section 2 the experimental setup and the process of ex- searches, such that realistic search and browsing
behavtraction is described. Experimental results are reported ior could be recorded. Since we focus on the textual
in Section 3 and the impact of text complexity features is complexity of the visited pages, other page types like
analyzed. Finally, a summary of the main results and an search engine result pages and video-based contents are
outlook is given in section 4. ltered. For this purpose, we used a keyword-based
approach and omitted pages which contained the following
keyterms in their URL: "google.", "youtu", "ecosia",
"RDSIn2. Experimental Setup and dex","universitaetsbibliothek", "meteoros", "webcam" and
Text-based Features "learningsnacks". For all remaining pages, we extracted
all displayed text without further processing. This can
We use data from a study [13] in which participants were lead to the fact that e.g., tables or advertisements are
asked to acquire knowledge about the formation of thun- in the analyzed texts. We decided against any further
der and lightning. The topic has already proven useful in preprocessing in order to minimize the bias in the data
previous work [14, 15]. It is a phenomenon that is gen- set.
erally known and requires both factual and procedural
knowledge. On the Web, many sources exist on the sub- 2.4. Website Features
ject, explaining it in diverse ways (texts, graphics, videos,
etc.). The participants were asked to do a Web search for To assess the complexity of text on Web pages, we extract
a maximum of 30 minutes; but were allowed to end the eight di erent types of features:
search earlier if they felt they had learned everything
important. We could use data from  = 104 participants
(88 female, 16 male, average age of 22.7 ± 2.7 years), for
which the visited Web pages were downloaded during
the experiment. The participants were recruited over
a local recruitment portal composed of students from
the University of Tübingen. Students were compensated
with 16e per person for participating in the study. None
of the participants had former expertise in meteorology.
• syntactical features
• readability scores
• part of speech (POS) density
• lexical richness
• lexical variation
• lexical sophistication
• syntactic constituents features
• connectives
2.1. Technical Setup of the Study Since the study was conducted in German, we mainly rely
on the Common Text Analysis Platform (CTAP) tool [16],
While plenty of data were collected during the study which currently provides 218 di erent complexity
fea(data sources such as eye and mouse tracking informa- tures for the German language. In total, we extract 248
tion), here, we focus on the text content of the visited Web features from each Web page. Below we give a short
depages. During the Web search, all visited Web pages of scription of each feature group. For a complete overview
the participants were tracked and recorded via the "Scrap- consider the appendix3.
bookX" (1.5.14)1 and "ScrapbookXAutosave" (1.4.3)2 plu- The syntactic features group consists of basic text
gins. statistics such as the number of letters, syllables, words,
and sentences. Moreover, the average length of each</p>
      <sec id="sec-1-1">
        <title>1https://github.com/danny0838/ refox-scrapbook</title>
        <p>2https://github.com/danny0838/ refox-scrapbook-autosave</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-1-2">
        <title>3https://github.com/molpood/IWILDS_Complexity_Feature_List/</title>
        <p>element is considered, like sentence length in letters or</p>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-1">
          <title>Additionally, ratios to each other are calculated, e.g., noun</title>
          <p>word length in syllables, as well as the standard deviation.
phrases per T-unit, but also words per T-unit or noun</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-2">
          <title>In addition, we calculate the average reading time of the phrases per sentence. Moreover, we consider the tenses</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-3">
          <title>Web pages by assuming 180 words per minute [17].</title>
          <p>in the text based on Kurdi [12]’s observation that there
The second group of features consists of well-known
may be a connection between more di cult texts and
readability scores that aim to estimate the skills a reader
more complex tenses. To extract the tenses, we use the
must have to understand the text. The features are based
tool of Dönicke [21].
on combinations of the syntactic features (automated
The
last
group</p>
          <p>Connectives
(according
to
readability index (ARI), Coleman-Liau index,
Flesch</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-4">
          <title>Breindl et al. [22]) examines units of the German</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-5">
          <title>Kincaid grade, Flesch reading ease) and partly on di cult language that express semantic relations between or complex words. They are given either by a list (Dalesentences. The connectives form a class consisting of</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-6">
          <title>Chall readability score, Gunning fog) or by words with</title>
          <p>subsets of de ned parts of speech like conjunctions
three or more syllables (SMOG index). For example, the
(and, or, etc.) or adverbs (in contrast, therefore, etc.).
formula for ARI is as follows:
ARI = 4.71 · |characters| + 0.5 · |sentences| − 21.43
|words|
|words|</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-7">
          <title>In the case of the ARI, the result is a human-interpretable</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-8">
          <title>The absolute number of connectives, as well as ratios, such as multi-word connectives divided by single-word connectives, are calculated as features.</title>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-9">
          <title>The eight groups consist of a total of 248 features that</title>
          <p>are calculated for each Web page visited during the search
numerical value on a scale of 1-14 (1: Kindergarten, 14: sessions. Since the participants accessed a di erent
num</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-10">
          <title>Professor).</title>
          <p>The POS density group re ects the density of di erent
word types like adjectives or verbs in the website text. It
is based on the tokenization of the text and calculates the
di erent number of word types (e.g., adjectives or verbs)
in relation to all tokens, e.g.,
densityadjectives = |adjectives|
|tokens|</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-11">
          <title>The fourth group lexical richness is very similar. Here,</title>
          <p>the number of non-duplicated tokens is set in relation to
all tokens. In addition to the fraction ttoykpeenss , various
variations such as the logarithm or square root are applied
to the numerator and denominator.</p>
          <p>The lexical variation group examines the subset of
lexical words (LW) consisting of nouns, verbs, adjectives
and adverbs. The class puts the number of individual
components in relation to the number of lexical words,
e.g., the lexical variation lv_adjectives for adjectives:
lv_adjectives = |adjectives|
|LW|</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-12">
          <title>The group of lexical sophistication features is based on dif</title>
          <p>ferent frequency lists [18, 19]. All words of the Web page
text are assigned to sets of all words AW, lexical words</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-13">
          <title>LW (as mentioned before consisting of nouns, verbs, ad</title>
          <p>jectives and adverbs) and functional words FW (i.e., not</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-14">
          <title>LW). The logarithmic or absolute frequency in the fre</title>
          <p>quency lists (per million words) of AW, LW and FW is
consequently used as a feature. Furthermore, the
Karlsruhe Childrens Text (KCT) [20] list is used to determine
the average and minimum age of active use of AW, LW
and FW.</p>
        </sec>
        <sec id="sec-1-2-15">
          <title>The group of syntactic constituents consists of features</title>
          <p>that determine the number of di erent syntactic
constituents, like noun phrases, relative clauses or T-units.  = 104 records for our analysis.
for knowledge gain prediction.
ber of Web pages, we compute the average, the minimum
and the maximum for each feature for each participant.</p>
          <p>As a result, we obtain a total of 3 · 248 = 744 features</p>
        </sec>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-2">
      <title>3. Experimental Results</title>
      <p>In this section, we report results for knowledge gain
prediction using features for text complexity. For a fair
comparison, we use the same evaluation setting including
hyperparameter optimization for all experiments. In the
same way, we replicate the results of Otto et al. [9]4 with
our evaluation procedure.
3.1. Knowledge Gain Definition</p>
      <sec id="sec-2-1">
        <title>To categorize the measured knowledge gain, we use the</title>
        <p>common approach [7, 8, 9] to assign each search session
to one of three classes  = {,  , ℎ}
based on the Standard Deviation Classi cation approach.
is z-normalized (^) according to equation 1.</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-2">
        <title>For this purpose, the knowledge gain  of participant</title>
        <p>^ =
 − 

(1)</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-3">
        <title>Here,  is the mean and  is the standard deviation</title>
        <p>of all knowledge gain measures . Then, for every
znormalized knowledge gain ^ the class is assigned as
follows:
() :=</p>
        <p>Moderate, if −
⎨
⎧ Low,
⎩ High,
if ^ &lt; − 2</p>
        <p>1
if ^ &gt; 21</p>
        <p>^
1 1
2 ≤  ≤ 2</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-4">
        <title>4Otto et al. [9] analyzed features for 113 participants. Technical issues with</title>
        <p>logging led to missing HTML data for nine participants which were crawled at a
later date. We rely on the data crawled during the original experiment, leading to
Normalization
Feature Selection</p>
        <p>(optional)</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-5">
        <title>We use min-max normalization to normalize each fea</title>
        <p>ture of the 80% to the interval [0, 1]. This is an
essential step for some of the classi ers, e.g., Support Vector
Machine. The 20% test set is then normalized by the
minimum and maximum of the 80% for evaluation. It is
possible that the values lie outside the interval of [0, 1].
However, we decide against clipping in order to not lose
any information due to normalization. Figure 1 provides
an overview of our proposed evaluation. In our
evaluation we use the implementation of Scikit-learn [23].
3.3.1. Hyperparameter Optimization
3.2. Metrics</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-6">
        <title>The performance of classi cation algorithms strongly</title>
        <p>Figure 1: Overview of our evaluation method. A 5-fold cross- depends on the chosen hyperparameters. However, since
validation is performed and for each split the features are the training, validation and test data change in each
iterafirst normalized, optionally selected/reduced and the hyper- tion due to cross-validation, these cannot be determined
parameters of the respective classifier are optimized on the once and used for the entire evaluation. Therefore, to
80% train/validation data. The test data are scaled with the obtain valid results, we perform an optimization of the
minimum and maximum of the train/validation data and op- hyperparameters in each of the ve iterations. We utilize
tionally the features are filtered. Finally, the classifier opti- Optuna [24] for an Bayesian search to e ciently nd a
mized on the train and validation data is used to predict the good con guration and limit the number of runs to 500
knowledge gain on the test data set. to reduce the computational cost. From the 80% of the
data coming from the 80:20 split of the cross-validation,
another 80:20 split is performed, where 80% is training
data and 20% is validation data. We set the maximization
This yields the following class distribution: |XLow|=40, of the weighted F1 score as the optimization objective.
|XModerate|=39, |XHigh|=25. This is to prevent the class imbalance from making the
underrepresented class High less important, as it would
be, for example, with overall accuracy.
3.3.2. Feature Selection</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-7">
        <title>To evaluate the classi cation results, we use precision,</title>
        <p>recall, 1 score, and accuracy. These are de ned as
follows:</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-8">
        <title>The classi cation results may also depend on the number</title>
        <p>precision = TP (2) of input features (more is not always better). For example,
TP + FP in the Random Forest algorithm, a subset of the features</p>
        <p>TP is selected several times to create weak classi ers and
recall = TP + FN (3) there is no guarantee that "good features" will prevail.</p>
        <p>precision · recall For this reason, we want to reduce the number of
feaF1 score = 2 · precision + recall (4) tures while trying to preserve valuable features. Again,
it is important to separate the feature selection from the
accuracy = TP + TN (5) test data, which changes in each iteration. As with
hy</p>
        <p>TP + TN + FP + FN perparameter optimization, we use the further split into
where TP are the values correctly classi ed as positive, training and validation data to do this. It follows that the
TN are the values correctly classi ed as negative, and FP selected features may change in each iteration. For the
are the values incorrectly classi ed as positive and FN selection of the features to be used for this evaluation,
are the values incorrectly classi ed as negative. we rely on two strategies:
3.3. Experimental Setup
Cross-validation is a good way to evaluate the classi
cation result, since every feature vector acts as a test sample
in one fold. We thus choose a 5-fold cross-validation with
80% train/validation and 20% test set split. This results
in ve elements per class in each test set in each iteration
of the cross-validation.
1.  2-based Feature Selection: This method
examines whether a feature has a statistically
significant relationship to knowledge gain. While one
feature is analyzed for a relationship, all other
features are ignored. The features with the 
highest values based on the  2-test are selected.
2. Tree-based Feature Selection: Features
without a direct correlation to the knowledge gain
3.3.3. Classifiers</p>
      </sec>
      <sec id="sec-2-9">
        <title>Otto et al. [9] limit their evaluation to a Random Forest [25] classi er. In addition to that, we explore several alternative classi ers: Adaboost [26], Decision Tree [27],</title>
        <p>K-Nearest Neighbors [28], Multi-layer Perceptron [29],
and Support Vector Machine [30]. The objective is to
experimentally determine the best con guration in order
to nd the maximum potential for knowledge gain
prediction, given the set of features.</p>
        <p>can be important predictors in combination with 3.4. Classifier Performance
other features. For this reason, we employ a
treebased approach using a Random Forest classi er. In Table 1, we compare the performance for all classi ers.
This is tted to the training data and then ana- As baselines, we list the results for weighted guessing
lyzed to see which features were most heavily (WG), which is the mean of each metric for 10,000
ranused in the decision. The  values with the high- domly generated vectors consisting of class labels with
est importance are selected. The goal is to select respect to the class distribution, and the original reported
valuable features for the classi cation even with- results from Otto et al. [9] (Otto*). For a fair
compariout direct correlation. son with our features, we reproduced the results using
the features from Otto et al. [9] with our pipeline (Otto).</p>
        <p>Furthermore, to analyze the performance for a feature
set as diverse as possible, we combined the features of
Otto et al. [9], and our proposed feature set for
evaluation (Otto+our). For the cumulative predictions for all</p>
        <p>ve iterations of cross-validation, the precision, recall,
and F1 score are calculated for each class (Low, Moderate,
and High), as well as the average of these metrics over
all classes, and the overall accuracy.</p>
        <p>First, it is notable that the reproduced results of
Otto et al. [9] (Otto) are better compared to their reported
result (Otto*). The results of the Multi-layer Perceptron
(MLP) provide a 5.9% higher F1 score (34.9% compared
to 40.8%). However, in direct comparison to the
reproduced result with a Random Forest (RF), the original Table 2
results are better. It is striking, that the improved out- The optimized hyperparameters per fold 1, ...5 for the
come stems mainly from better predictions from the class Random Forest classifier for our features.
High. A closer look reveals that the recall scores for the 1 2 3 4 5
tree-based classi ers Adaboost (Ada), Decision Tree (DT)
and Random Forest (RF) are comparatively low. These estimators 242 299 154 150 223
algorithms seem to preferentially predict the more repre- mmaaxx__fdeeapttuhres s2q2rt lo1g72 sq8rt lo1g72 s1q7rt
sented classes for the features of Otto et al. [9] and accept criterion entr. gini sqrt entr. gini
a worse result for the underrepresented class High. This min_n_split 6 3 7 7 4
impression is enforced by the fact that for all feature min_n_leaf 5 8 3 8 7
sets the F1 score (f1) for the three classi ers is signi
cantly worse for the class High than for the classes Low
and Moderate. This is not the case for any of the other
classi ers. hyperparameters for each fold 1, ..., 5 are shown in</p>
        <p>Nevertheless, Random Forest (RF) and Adaboost (Ada) Table 2. No pattern can be discovered in the parameters,
perform best for the other feature sets (our and Otto+our). they are very di erent in shape. This could possibly be
The RF using the features of textual complexity (our) related to the heterogeneity of the data and the weakness
yields a slightly better macro F1 score (42.0%) than the of the features for prediction.</p>
        <p>MLP using the features of Otto (41.2%). In addition, the
RF achieves an overall accuracy of 43.3% while the MLP
only achieves 40.6%. The best result is obtained by the 3.5. Feature Selection
Adaboost classi er for Otto+our with 45.2% macro F1 In Table 1, it is observable that the classi cation result
score and 46.2% overall accuracy. Examining the results for the Random Forest classi er (RF) performs worse
for the Random Forest algorithm for all three feature sets, for the combination of features (Otto+our) than for the
we notice that the F1 scores of all three classes for the complexity-only features (our). It seems that
considcombination of features are strictly between the F1 scores ering more features does not necessarily improve the
of the individual feature sets. At the same time, the F1 classi cation quality. The result for the Random Forest
scores for the combination of features are all better than classi er (RF) for the textual complexity (our) features
for the individual sets for Adaboost. We assume that for  ∈ {1, 3, 5, ..., 99} is shown in Figure 2. It can
the Random Forest algorithm is a ected by too many be seen, that the classi cation result is achieved with
(diverse) features. Adaboost can weight the features dif- fewer features, regardless of the feature selection
stratferently and thus utilize the strengths of both feature egy. With the  2-based selection method, the result is
sets. also achieved with fewer features, but later than with</p>
        <p>Another observation is that the F1 scores of all feature the tree-based method. This makes sense in so far as the
sets for the K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) algorithm are
signi cantly higher for the class Moderate than for the
sctlarastseegsiLesowwiathndLoHwig(ho.r THhigehre)fkonreo,wwleedsguesgpaeicnt dthiaetrsmeaurcchh 50 Our, Random Forest chi2
tmhoercel.aFsusrMthoedremraotree,owf eoucranfeoabtuserrevseisthhaitgthhecoFm1spcaorreedfotor 45 tarlelefeatures
the classes Low and High, independent of the classi er. %
On closer inspection, we found that often instances of in40
the class Low are classi ed as High and vice versa. If rcoe
we put the classi cation result for the classes Low and FS135
High together, i.e., a new class Not Moderate, we would vag
get 74.1%, 70.8% and 73.1% F1 score for the classi ers 30
MLP, RF and SVM, respectively, for this new class. It
seems like the complexity features are useful to detect if
someone does not have a Moderate increase in knowledge 25 0 20 40 60 80
gain. We plan to investigate this interesting aspect in the Number of Selected Features
future. Figure 2: Average F1 scores of the Random Forest classifier</p>
        <p>For our textual complexity features, the best result was using  ∈ {1, 3, 5, ..., 99} of our features for the  2-based
obtained with the Random Forest classi er. In each itera- (chi2) and the tree-based (tree) Feature Selection strategy.
tion of the 5-fold cross-validation, an independent hyper- The result for all features is indicated with the dotted line.
parameter optimization was performed. The optimized
 2-based method considers the features independently
of each other, and only measures the individual correla- 50 Otto, Random Forest chi2
tion of a feature with knowledge gain. In contrast, the tree
tree-based strategy selects features based on their impor- in%40 all features
tance for an upstream Random Forest. Thus, the baseline ihg
level can already be reached with  = 19 features. ssH30</p>
        <p>Cross-validation is used for evaluation as described lca
above (Section 3.3.1). Similarly, feature selection is per- fro
formed ve times. However, this implies that the features rcoe20
chosen in each iteration of the cross-validation may di er, FS1
which complicates the analysis of which features most vag10
in uence the classi cation result. We therefore propose
to highlight the features that were selected in at least 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
three out of ve iterations. Since the classi cation result Number of Selected Features
of the Random Forest was already achieved with  = 17 Figure 3: F1 scores for the class High for the features of
features, we report the features based on this con gu- Otto et al. [9] for  ∈ {1, 3, 5, ..., 79} features for the
ration. The features and their frequencies are shown in  2-based (chi2) and the tree-based (tree) Feature Selection
Table 3. Three features were selected at least three times, strategy. The result for all features is indicated with the
dotbut none were selected in every iteration of the cross- ted line.
validation. All three were aggregated by the minimum,
indicating that the Web page with the lowest textual
complexity is most important for the classi cation result. 4. Conclusions
This strengthens the impression that the features or the
aggregations (Minimum, Maximum and Average) are too In this paper, we have investigated the impact of textual
weak to provide a strong prediction of the knowledge complexity of Web pages on knowledge gain during a
gain. In the future, we aim to include more features and Web search. The experimental results demonstrated that
nd aggregations that are more suitable to re ect search the state of the art can be improved by only considering
patterns. the textual complexity of Web pages. The results also</p>
        <p>In the last section, it was observed that the F1 score showed that a systematic assessment of di erent
hyperfor the class High is signi cantly below the values for parameter settings, feature selection, and several
classithe classes Low and Moderate, regardless of the feature ers is important – in particular, since the correlations
set. We performed feature selection before hyperpa- between features and the target outcome are relatively
rameter optimization and repeated the evaluation with weak. During the evaluation, it became apparent that
 ∈ {1, 3, 5, ..., 79} features. Figure 3 shows how the as little as 17 features per iteration of cross-validation
F1 score for the class High changes with a subset of the would have been su cient to achieve the result.
Furtherfeatures of Otto et al. [9]. The green curve describes the more, we found that a moderate knowledge gain can be
F1 scores based on the tree-based feature selection strat- predicted relatively well, but, interestingly, the
distincegy, which tries to select the most important features tion between successful and unsuccessful Web search
for classi cation. It is noticeable that almost any tested does not work well (in terms of knowledge gain). The
subset would have been more suitable than using the full reasons for this e ect have to be investigated in more
feature set. Moreover, the curve does not change from detail.
 = 65 onward (same observation for the classes Low Although we have obtained state-of-the-art results,
and Moderate), which suggests that the tree-based fea- there are some limitations. In this case study, we
anature selection strategy does not consider many features lyzed only the data of a study on knowledge acquisition
at all. about a speci c science topic, the formation of
thunder</p>
      </sec>
    </sec>
    <sec id="sec-3">
      <title>Acknowledgments</title>
      <p>Part of this work is nancially supported by the
Leibniz Association, Germany (Leibniz Competition 2018,
funding line "Collaborative Excellence", project SALIENT
[K68/2017]).
storms. Consequently, limited conclusions can be drawn
about general Web searches and the results need to be
con rmed or extended by future studies. In this sense,
the reported results need to be reproduced for (a) di
erent types of learning tasks (e.g., procedural knowledge)
and (b) conceptual learning tasks in other domains (e.g.,
non-science topics).</p>
      <p>In the future, we would like to deepen our
understanding of what behavioral patterns characterize e ective
Web searches, for instance, by examining how the
sequence of Web pages (and their characteristics) in uence
learning success. An intuitive assumption is, for
example, that a successful learning session consists of Web
pages of increasing complexity. Furthermore, we have
considered the textual complexity of the entire Web page,
but not in every case is the Web page content read in its
entirety. In future work we would like to focus more on
the actual seen during Web search.</p>
      <p>Lastly, we focused on text-based Web pages in this
case study. However, many of the Web searches were
not unimodal but multimodal. Consequently, further
investigations will need to include further complexity
measures such as visual complexity of the Web pages or
videos.
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