A DETAILED ANALYSIS OF END-USER SEARCH BEHAVIORS 1

摘要

Individuals searching online databases frequently begin with an initial group of terms, then interactively revise these terms to reduce or enlarge the size of the retrieval set or to increase both precision and recall. Each search statement in this revision process can be viewed as a "move" in the overall search strategy [2]. Because very little is known about how end users develop and revise their search strategies, a descriptive study was conducted to analyze the moves made in 244 database searches conducted by 26 medical students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In preparing clinical case problems, these students voluntarily searched INQUIRER [3, 4], a database of facts and concepts in microbiology. The searches were conducted during a three-week period in spring 1990 and were recorded by the INQUIRER system. Each search statement was categorized, using Fidel's [2] online searching moves and Bates's [5] search tactics. Further analysis of the individual moves indicated that the most common moves were Browse/Specify, Select, Exhaust, Intersect, and Vary, and that selection of moves varied by student and by problem. Analysis of search tactics (i.e., combinations of moves) identified five common search approaches. The results of this study have implications for future research on search behaviors, for the design of system interfaces and database structures, and for the training of end users.