Identifying the Factors Affecting Query Formulation: A Systematic Review

To identify the most important factors affecting query formulation.

The design of this study was qualitative. The factors were extracted and categorized through a systematic review and an analytical meta-analysis in six steps. The steps included: determining keywords, creating inclusion criteria and deleting articles, background search, extracting lists A, B and C, descriptive analysis, and thematic analysis. In this regard, based on a search cycle and using a number of keywords approved by experts, articles related to the factors affecting the query formulation were studied. After descriptive analysis of these resources, contents were extracted according to the topic. The research population included all published articles on the factors affecting the query formulation in the period from 1991 to 2021. These resources were searched in reliable databases such as Scopus, Springer, Emerald, Web of Science, Elsevier, Eric, ProQuest, Ebsco, Cite Seer, Information Research, LISA, LISTA and Wiley. After extracting articles, collecting and analysing qualitative data, these analyses were used to determine the factors affecting the query formulation.

Findings showed that the factors affecting the query formulation itself originate from several fields such as user and retrieval task, which can be classified into two general categories of user-related factors and task-related factors. User-related factors included subject knowledge, knowledge of how to use the search system, search experience, language, demographic features, contextual factors, cognitive style, and cognitive load. Task-related factors included the type of search task and task difficulty. These factors change the formulation process in different ways that can be considered both positive and negative, as some of them may help to improve the quality of the formulation, others may prevent retrieval to be performed correctly.

Identifying factors affecting the query formulation and analysing the relationships between them can improve the quality of information literacy training by experts in this field. Also, it helps web designers create search tools tailored to the user's needs. Since formulation is an important part of information retrieval behaviours, recognizing the influencing factors can help discovering information retrieval patterns. Understanding how to formulate a query under the influence of various factors and recognizing these factors, can help increase the quality of search and retrieve more relevant results and improve human-computer interaction.