 The size of retrieval setsMark T. Kinnucan Journal of the American Society for Information Science, 1992, vol. 43, issue 1, 72-79 Abstract: This study was concerned with the question of how much information users of online search services want when they have a search conducted. This question was investigated within the context of multiattribute decision making. Thirty‐two individuals rated their likely satisfaction with the results of hypothetical online searches on a 21‐point scale. The hypothetical searches varied in terms of the number of documents retrieved, the percentage of retrieved documents that were relevant to the searcher's topic (the precision of the search), and the cost of the search. These three attributes were combined factorially to construct the hypothetical searches. Each subject in the study rated all of the searches. The results showed that the precision of the search had the largest effect on the satisfaction ratings. The size of the retrieval set did not affect the ratings directly, but did combine with precision in a multiplicative fashion, in that high precision was not as highly valued when there were larger numbers of documents in the retrieval set. The results were interpreted in terms of a psychological theory called “information integration theory.” © 1992 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Date: 1992 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jamest:v:43:y:1992:i:1:p:72-79 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article More articles in Journal of the American Society for Information Science from Association for Information Science & Technology |
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