Effects of domain knowledge on reference search with the PubMed database: An experimental study

Many researchers in medical and life sciences commonly use the PubMed online search engine (http://www.pubmed.gov) to access the MEDLINE bibliographic database. The researchers' strategies were investigated as a function of their knowledge of the content area. Sixteen life science researchers with no experience in neuroscience and 16 neuroscience researchers of matched professional experience performed five bibliographic search tasks about neuroscience topics. Objective measures and concomitant verbal protocols were used to assess behavior and performance. Whatever their knowledge of PubMed, neuroscientists could find adequate references within the allotted time period. Despite their lack of knowledge in neuroscience, life scientists could select adequate references with the same efficiency. However, differences were observed in the way neuroscientists and life scientists proceeded. For instance, life scientists took more time to read the task instructions and opened more abstracts while selecting their answers. These data suggest that regular use of online databases combined with graduate‐level expertise in a broad scientific field like biology can compensate for the absence of knowledge in the specific domain in which references are sought. The large inter‐individual variability in performance within both groups implies that beyond domain knowledge, individual cognitive abilities are the main determinants of bibliographic search performance.