Abstract: ［Purpose/Significance］How to understand the mental model evolution and learning patterns of novice users of academic database during their interaction with systems is an issue worthy of concern. Exploring the influence of task types on mental model and learning patterns of novice users of academic database can promote users’ better use of academic database.
［Design/Methodology］With the experiment of 77 novice users’ participation in three types of information search (i.e. factual task, exploratory task and interventional task), the conceptual maps of CNKI database were created by novice users before and after their task execution. Then the differences in structure and content of these conceptual maps were analyzed to explore the impact of task types on novice users’ mental model evolution and learning patterns of academic database.
［Findings/Conclusion］Firstly, the evolution of novice users’ mental model before and after information seeking was driven by task types with different performance of conceptual structure and dimensional content. Secondly, all the users conducted study both before and after their search, but their learning patterns were different. Most novice users conducted meaningful learning after factual tasks and interventional tasks, while a preliminary learning was performed after exploratory tasks.
［Originality/Value］From the perspective of task types, this study enriches the research on novice users' mental model and learning patterns in "search as learning", which is helpful for information professionals to carry out information retrieval training for novice users and optimize the design of retrieval systems.

Key words: Information search, Mental model, Conceptual map, Novice user, Learning pattern