Magnitude Feedback During Database Searching

Abstract

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

This  paper reports initial results from a study of magnitude feedback during database searching, including: (1) the frequency of magnitude feedback occurrences during 40 mediated database searches, (2) the user and search intermediary magnitude feedback behavior, and (3) the number of postings which leads to the completion of a cycle and the display of retrieved items. Feedback has been identified as an important but little researched element of database searching (Spink, 1993a). Results indicate that magnitude feedback occurred frequently during the mediated database searches with different patterns of magnitude feedback behaviour by users and search intermediaries.