The purpose of this study was to explore whether the concept of amount of invested mental effort (AIME) developed in the field of educational psychology can help explain why people put so little effort into online searching. In this experimental study, two information retrieval systems a web search engine and a university library system were used to make a comparison. The data were collected from 15 undergraduate students through background questionnaires, think-aloud protocols, search logs, post-search questionnaires, and post-task interviews. The findings indicate that perception of the webs easy-ness and high levels of self confidence in searching capability led the subjects to put less effort into web searching than they do into library system searching. In addition, the perceived difficulty of search task influenced the extent of mental effort invested. The AIME proved a useful framework for understanding search behavior and user experience for both web search engines and library systems.
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