Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
aggregation (e.g., individuals, groups, organizations, communities, nationalities,
societies, etc.). Such analysis must focus on all aspects of what the actors do. These
behaviors have a temporal element, when and how long these behaviors occur. The
behaviors occur within some context, and thus are embedded in environmental and
situational features. The cognitive aspect to these behaviors is the rational and affec-
tive processes internal to the actors executing the behaviors.
From this perspective, each of these components - actor, behaviors, temporal,
context, and cognitive - are behaviorist constructs. However, for SSA, we are pri-
marily concerned with behaviors.
Behaviors
Like all human activities, sponsored search is ultimately based on individual behav-
ior, which is the essential variable in an SSA-based study.
A variable in analysis or empirical research is an entity representing a set of events
where each event may have a different value. In SSA, time on page or number of
clicks may be variables for a given study. The particular variables that an analysis is
interested in are derived from the research questions driving the study.
One can define variables by their use in a study (e.g., independent, dependent,
extraneous, controlled, constant, and confounding) and by their nature. Defined by
their nature, there are three types of variables: environmental (i.e., situation, envi-
ronment, or contextual events), subject (i.e., events or aspects of the subject being
studied), and behavioral (i.e., observable events by the subject of interest).
For SSA, a behavior is the essential construct of the behaviorism paradigm. At
its most basic, a behavior is an observable activity of a person, animal, team, orga-
nization, or system. Like many basic constructs, behavior is an overloaded term, as
it also refers to the aggregate set of responses to both internal and external stimuli.
Therefore, behaviors address a spectrum of actions. Because of the many associa-
tions with the term, it is difficult to characterize a term like behavior without specify-
ing a context to provide meaning.
However, one can generally classify behaviors into four general categories, which
are as follows:
•
Something that one can
detect
and therefore record.
•
action
or a specific goal-driven event that represents a purpose other than the
specific action that is observable (e.g., it is not just a click, it is a purchase).
Some
An
•
skill
or skill set.
A reactive
•
response
to environmental stimuli.
In some manner, the analyst must observe these behaviors. By observation, we mean
studying and gathering information on a behavior concerning what the searcher
does. Classically, observation is visual, where the analyst uses his or her own eyes.
However, recording devices, such as cameras, can assist in making observations. We
extend the concept of observation to include other recording devices, notably logging
software. Transaction log analysis focuses on descriptive observation and logging the
behaviors as they would occur.
