Search results

Prior studies have shown that terminology support can improve health information retrieval but have not taken into account the characteristics of the user performing the search. In this chapter, the impact of translating queries’ terms between lay and medico-scientific terminology, in users with different levels of health literacy and topic familiarity, is evaluated. Findings demonstrate that medico-scientific queries demand more from the users and are mostly aimed at health professionals. In addition, these queries retrieve documents that are less readable and less well understood by users. Despite this, medico-scientific queries are associated with higher precision in the top-10 retrieved documents results and tend slightly to generate knowledge with less incorrect contents, the researchers concluded that search engines should provide query suggestions with medico-scientific terminology, whenever the user is able to digest it, that is, in users above the lowest levels of health literacy and topic familiarity. On the other hand, retrieval systems should provide lay alternative queries in users with inadequate health literacy or in those unfamiliar with a topic. In fact, the quantity of incorrect contents in the knowledge that emerges from a medico-scientific session tends to decrease with topic familiarity and health literacy. In terms of topic familiarity, the opposite happens with Graded Average Precision. Moreover, users most familiar with a topic tend to have higher motivational relevance with medico-scientific queries than with lay queries. This work is the first to consider user context features while studying the impact of a query processing technique in several aspects of the retrieval process, including the medical accuracy of the acquired knowledge.

This study aims to explore the influence of topic familiarity on the four stages of college students' learning search process.

This study clarified the effects of topic familiarity on students' learning search process by conducting a simulation experiment based on query formulation, information item selection, information sources and learning output.

The results characterized users' interaction behaviors in increasing topic familiarity through their use of more task descriptions as queries, increased reformulation of queries, construction of more purposeful query formulation, reduced attention to a topic's basic concept content and increased exploration of academic platform contents.

This study proposed three innovative indicators which were proposed to evaluate the effects of topic familiarity on college students' learning search process, and the adopted metrics were useful for observing differences in college students' learning output as their topic familiarity increased. It contributes to the understanding of a user's search process and learning output to support the optimization function of learning-related information search systems and improve their effect on the user's search process for learning.

To evaluate the extent to which familiarity with search topics affects the ways in which users select and browse search terms in a thesaurus‐enhanced search setting.

An experimental methodology was adopted to study users’ search behaviour in an operational information retrieval environment.

Topic familiarity and subject knowledge influence some search and interaction behaviours. Searches involving moderately and very familiar topics were associated with browsing around twice as many thesaurus terms as was the case for unfamiliar topics.

Some search behaviours such as thesaurus browsing and term selection could be used as an indication of user levels of topic familiarity.

The results of this study provide design implications as to how to develop personalized search interfaces where users with varying levels of familiarity with search topics can carry out searches.

This paper establishes the importance of topic familiarity characteristics and the effects of those characteristics on users’ interaction with search interfaces enhanced with semantic tools such as thesauri.

The purpose of this paper is to examine perceived self-efficacy of users within an interactive video retrieval context. The motivation for this research includes that understanding self-efficacy will provide insight on how potential users target resources and in turn promote and sustain use of retrieval tools and systems.

A survey method was employed. In total, 270 participants rated levels of perceived self-efficacy for successfully fulfilling different video needs if using a particular system. Perceived self-efficacy was explored quantitatively, both overall and across different potentially influential factors, such as topic type, topic familiarity, system experience, and system context. In addition, open-ended responses on the survey were categorized through content-analysis and subsequently analyzed using weighted frequencies.

Findings demonstrated significant associations between participants’ perceived self-efficacy and different topical factors, including familiarity and topic type, and also system factors, such as exposure (or experience) and system context.

User confidence is one belief or attitude about technology acceptance, with self-efficacy intersecting multiple factors related to initial and sustained use of technologies. Findings give researchers a look at users’ preconceptions of interactive video retrieval situations, which, in turn, suggest positive implications for future research and design.

Video retrieval comprises considerations that are unique from other contexts due to the structure and physical makeup of video. However, until now, self-efficacy has not been directly examined in relation to video or according to several of the specific retrieval factors as explored in the current study, which is thus warranted.

The aim of the current paper is to test whether query translation is beneficial in web retrieval.

The language pairs were Finnish‐Swedish, English‐German and Finnish‐French. A total of 12‐18 participants were recruited for each language pair. Each participant performed four retrieval tasks. The author's aim was to compare the performance of the translated queries with that of the target language queries. Thus, the author asked participants to formulate a source language query and a target language query for each task. The source language queries were translated into the target language utilizing a dictionary‐based system. In English‐German, also machine translation was utilized. The author used Google as the search engine.

The results differed depending on the language pair. The author concluded that the dictionary coverage had an effect on the results. On average, the results of query‐translation were better than in the traditional laboratory tests.

This research shows that query translation in web is beneficial especially for users with moderate and non‐active language skills. This is valuable information for developers of cross‐language information retrieval systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of task and user’s topic familiarity in the evaluation of information patch (websites).

An experimental study was conducted in a computer laboratory to examine users’ information seeking and foraging behaviour. In total, 160 university students participated in the research. Two types of task instructions, specifically defined and non-specifically defined (general) task types were administered. Mixed methods approach involving both quantitative and qualitative thematic coding were adopted, from the data of the questionnaire surveys and post-experiment interviews.

In the context of task attributes, users who conducted information seeking task with specifically defined instructions, as compared to the non-specifically defined instructions, demonstrated stricter credibility evaluations. Evidence demonstrated the link between topical knowledge and credibility perception. Users with topical knowledge applied critical credibility assessments than users without topical knowledge. Furthermore, the evidential results supported that the level of difficulty and knowledge of the topic or subject matter associated with users’ credibility evaluations. Users who have lesser or no subject knowledge and who experienced difficulty in the information search tended to be less diagnostic in their appraisal of the information patch (website or webpages). Users equipped with topical knowledge and who encountered less difficulty in the search, exhibited higher expectation and evaluative criteria of the information patch.

The constraints of time in the lab experiment, carried out in the presence of and under the observation of the researcher, may affect users’ information seeking behaviour. It would be beneficial to consider users’ information search gratifications and motivations in studying information evaluations and foraging patterns. There is scope to investigate users’ proficiency such as expert or novice, and individual learning styles in assessing information credibility.

Past studies on information evaluation, specifically credibility is often associated with users’ characteristics, source, or contents. This study sheds light on the context of task type, task difficulty and topical knowledge in affecting users’ information judgement.

One of the scarce studies in relating task orientation, task difficulty and topical knowledge to information evaluations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that affect web searching behaviour of the students of the University of Zambia (UNZA).

This study adopted a qualitative research approach in order to get an insight into the interactions of the students at the UNZA with the real web situation. A post-search questionnaire was used as a tool to gather information from 65 Library and Information Science students about search techniques used, web experience, and subject knowledge of users.

This study shows that the main purpose for using the internet by students at the UNZA is for academic work. The findings also show that factors such as experience and topic familiarity had an effect on search behaviour, whereas, age of searcher did not affect the search technique used. Google was preferred for searching more than electronic databases.

This is the first systematic examination of students online search behaviour in Zambia. It allows the researchers to compare with search behaviour of students in a different social economic environment.

This paper uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodology to analyse differences between Finnish and American web searchers (n=27 per country) in their choice of initial search strategies (direct address, subject directory and search engines) and their reasoning underlying these choices, with data gathered via a questionnaire. The paper looks at these differences for four types of questions with two variables: closed/open and predictable/unpredictable source of answer (n=16 questions per searcher; total n=864 questions). The paper found significant differences between the two groups’ initial search strategies and for three of the four types of questions. The reasoning varied across countries and questions as well, with Finns mentioning fewer reasons although both groups mentioned in aggregate a total of 1,284 reasons in twenty‐four reason categories. The reasoning indicated that both country groups considered not only question‐related reasons but also source‐ and search‐strategy related reasons in making their decision. The research raises questions about considering cultural differences in designing web search access mechanisms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how different aspects of an assessor's context, in particular their knowledge of a search topic, their interest in the search topic and their confidence in assessing relevance for a topic, affect the relevance judgements made and the assessor's ability to predict which documents they will assess as being relevant.

The study was conducted as part of the Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) HARD track. Using a specially constructed questionnaire information was sought on TREC assessors' personal context and, using the TREC assessments gathered, the responses were correlated to the questionnaire questions and the final relevance decisions.

This study found that each of the three factors (interest, knowledge and confidence) had an affect on how many documents were assessed as relevant and the balance between how many documents were marked as marginally or highly relevant. Also these factors are shown to affect an assessors' ability to predict what information they will finally mark as being relevant.

The major limitation is that the research is conducted within the TREC initiative. This means that we can report on results but cannot report on discussions with the assessors. The research implications are numerous but mainly on the effect of personal context on the outcomes of a user study.

One major consequence is that we should take more account of how we construct search tasks for IIR evaluation to create tasks that are interesting and relevant to experimental subjects.

Examining different search variables within one study to compare the relative effects on these variables on the search outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to study what extent readers’ socio-demographic characteristics, literary preferences and search behavior predict success in fiction search in library catalogs.

In total, 80 readers searched for interesting novels in four differing search tasks. Their search actions were recorded with a Morae Recorder. Pre- and post-questionnaires elicited information about their background, literary preferences and search experience. Readers’ literary preferences were grouped into four orientations by a factor analysis. Linear regression analysis was applied for predicting search success as measured by books’ interest scores.

Most literary orientations contributed to search success, but in differing search tasks. The role of result examination was greater compared to querying in contributing search success almost in each task. The proportion of variance explained in books’ interest scores varied between 5 (open-ended browsing) and 50 percent (analogy search).

The distribution of participants was biased toward females, and the results are aggregated within search session, both reducing the variation of the phenomenon observed.

This study is one of the first to explore how readers’ literary preferences and searching are associated with finding interesting novels, i.e. search success, in library catalogs. The results expand and support the findings in Mikkonen and Vakkari (2017) concerning associations between reader characteristics and fiction search success.