END-USER SEARCH BEHAVIORS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO SEARCH EFFECTIVENESS

One hundred sixty-one MEDLINE searches conducted by third-year medical students were analyzed and evaluated to determine which search moves were used, whether those individual moves were effective, and whether there was a relationship between specific search behaviors and the eff ectiveness of the search strategy as a whole. The typical search inclu ded fourteen search statements, used seven terms or ''limit'' commands , and resulted in the display of eleven citations. The most common mov es were selection of a database, entering single-word terms and free-t ext term phrases, and combining sets of terms. Syntactic errors were a lso common. Overall, librarians judged the searches to be adequate, an d students were quite satisfied with their own searches. However, libr arians also identified many missed opportunities in the search strateg ies, including underutilization of the controlled vocabulary, subheadi ngs, and synonyms for search concepts. No strong relationships were fo und between specific search behaviors and search effectiveness (as mea sured by the librarians' or students' evaluations). Implications of th ese findings for system design and user education are discussed.