Spontaneous Learning Environments: Manipulating Readability & Cohesion in Support of Searching as Learning

In this concept paper, we make the case that variables related to reading and comprehension are relevant to the design of searching as learning environments. We propose that measures of cohesion – the lexical and grammatical connectedness within and between texts – be used as signals in retrieval and ranking algorithms for such environments, as cohesion is an important factor in text comprehension and learning. In illustrating this concept, we introduce a use case for learning-oriented search in which the task is to retrieve a multi-document set that functions as a spontaneous learning environment. For this task, features of the document set as a whole are important in addition to features of individual documents. In this paper, we focus on the goals of achieving a mid-range level of readability and cohesion across a set of texts in order to balance comprehensibility with challenge and stimulation.