Are Attributes Entities? A Study of Database Designers' Memory Structures

Ron Weber
Additional contact information
Ron Weber: The University of Queensland, Department of Commerce, Queensland 4072, Australia

Information Systems Research, 1996, vol. 7, issue 2, 137-162

Abstract: A longstanding debate in the data modeling literature pertains to whether the grammars used to generate conceptual schemas should sustain a distinction between entities and attributes. The grammars used to generate entity-relationship diagrams and object-oriented conceptual models, for example, provide separate constructs for representing entities and attributes. The grammars used to generate binary data models, however, provide only a single construct for representing both entities and attributes.To sharpen the focus of the debate, a multi-trial free-recall experiment was conducted with database designers who had been trained primarily in a binary conceptual schema design methodology. In the experiment, the designers were first shown conceptual schema diagrams based on a binary model. The designers were then asked to recall the diagrams. Throughout their training as designers, they had been admonished to eschew any distinction between entities and attributes. Moreover, the diagrams they were shown in the experiment did not make a distinction between entities and attributes. Their recall protocols seemed to show, however, that they were considering some elements of the diagrams to be entities and others to be attributes. Their memory structures appear to reflect, therefore, that they perceive entities and attributes to be two distinct constructs.

Keywords: conceptual modelling; entities; attributes; objects; ontology; human memory; semantic networks; spreading activation; chunking (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1996
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.7.2.137 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:7:y:1996:i:2:p:137-162

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().