An Exploratory Study into the Application and Interpretation of Frequency Tables Relative to a Search Retrieval Set

Abstract

From the 1994 CAIS Conference:
The Information Industry in Transition
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec. May 25 - 27, 1994.

Hidreth (1989:22) observed that subject searchers likely require a more interactive subject searching approach which allows for term and document appraisal and relevance feedback during the search process. In order to assess aspects of a user's evaluative skills, and of relevance feedback, a laboratory test was initiated to examine: 1) a procedure for evaluating a retrieved set: 2) a mechanism - a frequency table - to be used for that evaluation; and 3) the relationship between the evaluation procedure and the relevance feedback mechanism. Contrary to expectations that participants would use the frequency distribution tables to assist in evaluating a retrieved set, tables were used, instead, to modify the subsequent search strategy, to restructure the query. This suggests that frequency distribution tables may have some utility or value as interactive navigational aids to searchers.