The Nature of Relevance in Information Retrieval: An Empirical Study

Experimental research in information retrieval (IR) depends on the idea of relevance. Because of its key role in IR, recent questions about relevance have raised issues of methodological concern and have shaken the philosophical foundations of IR theory development. Despite an existing set of theoretical definitions of this concept, our understanding of relevance from users' perspectives is still limited. Using naturalistic inquiry methodology, this article reports an empirical study of user-based relevance interpretations. A model is presented that reflects the nature of the thought processes of users who are evaluating bibliographic citations produced by a document retrieval system. Three major categories of variables affecting relevance assessments-internal context, external context, and problem context-are identified and described. Users' relevance assessments involve multiple layers of interpretations that are derived from individuals' experiences, perceptions, and private knowledge related to the particular information problems at hand.