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An evaluation of interactive Boolean and natural language searching with an online medical textbook

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  • William R. Hersh
  • David H. Hickam

Abstract

Few studies have compared the interactive use of Boolean and natural language searching systems. We studied the use of three retrieval systems by senior medical students searching on queries generated by actual physicians in a clinical setting. The searchers were randomized to search on two or three different retrieval systems: a Boolean system, a word‐based natural language system, and a concept‐based natural language system. Our results showed no statistically significant differences in recall or precision among the three systems. Likewise, we found no user preference for any system over the others. In the course of this study we did find, however, a number of problems with traditional measures of retrieval evaluation when applied to the interactive search setting. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Suggested Citation

  • William R. Hersh & David H. Hickam, 1995. "An evaluation of interactive Boolean and natural language searching with an online medical textbook," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 46(7), pages 478-489, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamest:v:46:y:1995:i:7:p:478-489
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-4571(199508)46:73.0.CO;2-#
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    Cited by:

    1. Azzah Al‐Maskari & Mark Sanderson, 2010. "A review of factors influencing user satisfaction in information retrieval," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 61(5), pages 859-868, May.

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