PubMed searches by Dutch‐speaking nursing students: The impact of language and system experience
Klaar Vanopstal, Robert Vander Stichele, Godelieve Laureys, Joost Buysschaert · Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology · 2012
This study analyzes the search behavior ofDutch‐speaking nursing students with a nonnative knowledge ofEnglish who searched for information inMEDLINE/PubMedabout a specific theme in nursing. We examine whether and to what extent their search efficiency is affected by their language skills. Our task‐oriented approach focuses on three stages of the information retrieval process: need articulation, query formulation, and relevance judgment. The test participants completed a pretest questionnaire, which gave us information about their overall experience with the search system and their self‐reported computer and language skills. The students were briefly introduced to the use ofPubMedandMeSH(medical subject headings) before they conducted their keyword‐driven subject search. We assessed the search results in terms of recall and precision, and also analyzed the search process. After the search task, a satisfaction survey and a language test were completed. We conclude that language skills have an impact on the search results. We hypothesize that language support might improve the efficiency of searches conducted byDutch‐speaking users ofPubMed.