The Boolean Is Dead, Long Live the Boolean! Natural Language versus Boolean Searching in Introductory Undergraduate Instruction

Boolean logic can be a difficult concept for first-year, introductory students to grasp. This paper compares the results of Boolean and natural language searching across several databases with searches created from student research questions. Performance differences between databases varied. Overall...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:College & research libraries 2018-05, Vol.79 (4), p.517-534
Main Authors: Lowe, M. Sara, Maxson, Bronwen K, Stone, Sean M, Miller, Willie, Snajdr, Eric, Hanna, Kathleen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
College Freshmen
College students
Information Literacy
Information Retrieval
Information Skills
Introductory Courses
Librarians
Library Instruction
Natural language
Natural Language Processing
Online Searching
Scoring Rubrics
Search Strategies
Searches
Undergraduate Students
Undergraduate Study
User training
Users (Information)
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Summary:Boolean logic can be a difficult concept for first-year, introductory students to grasp. This paper compares the results of Boolean and natural language searching across several databases with searches created from student research questions. Performance differences between databases varied. Overall, natural search language is at least as good as Boolean searching. With evidence that students struggle to grasp Boolean searching, and may not use it even after instruction, it could be left out of first-year instruction, freeing up valuable class time to focus on concepts such as question development and source evaluation. As the Framework for Information Literacy does not specifically address Boolean operators, the authors suggest it should have less prominence in first-year Information Literacy instruction.
ISSN:0010-0870
2150-6701
2150-6701
DOI:10.5860/crl.79.4.517