Review of Search Engine Evaluation Researches: a Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Approach

Today, the evaluation of information retrieval systems, especially search engines, has become one of the most important studies in the field of information science. Nevertheless, a research as a review research on the evaluation of search engines was not observed. So, the aim is to analyze the related literature of information retrieval evaluation field using quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches.

This research is a review study to review the related articles. The terms »arzyabieh motor kavosh«,»arzyabieh nezam bazyabieh ettlaat«,»arzyabieh rabt«,»motor kavosh«,»motor jostejo« in the Magiran and SID database were searched. Also, the terms »evaluation search engine»،«evaluation information retrival»،«method and information retrieval«, »research and search engine« and »relevance« in the google scholar was searched and then the retrieved articles were studied. Finally, the research on the evaluation of general search engines published in Persian and English from 1998 have been studied using a library method and an analytical approach..

The results showed that, in the reviewed studies, the search engines evaluation has conducted through one of the quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches. In the quantitative approach, there are several research categories such as coverage and overlap, abstracting and indexing quality, retrieval algorithms, recommender systems, interface and document ranking quality. In the qualitative approach, there has been observed two kinds of studies which include ethnography and grounded theory. In the ethnography research, the users’ information retrieval behavior is described. In the other category, namely grounded theory, two research areas may be identified; one is fully committed to the qualitative principles and another semi-committed to them. Hence, Hjorland (2010) has criticized researchers who regard their research as a "functional" and qualitative approach, but did not follow all of their principles.

As in the research methodology, first, a quantitative method and then a qualitative method are proposed and finally, a mixed method is proposed to use the strengths of both methods. It seems that this process of change in research methods from quantitative to qualitative, and then from qualitative to composite has also affected the evaluation of information retrieval, especially search engines. In data retrieval research, a systematic approach has been initially introduced in evaluating information retrieval systems. Then some researchers have criticized this approach, which is the result of a user-oriented approach. In recent years, researchers such as Saracevic (2007) and Thoronley (2012) have considered both approaches as necessary ones and pointed to a dual-axis approach to data retrieval assessment research.