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Based on your comprehension of database search terms, explain why Marcus retrieved so many irrelevant records and decide what adjustments he should make to his search terms to retrieve highly relevant articles.
Case context: Marcus is searching an academic database for literature on how sleep deprivation affects college students' academic performance. He enters the single search term 'sleep' into the interface and is overwhelmed by over one million records, ranging from biological sleep cycles in fruit flies to sleep apnea treatments in elderly patients.
Question: Based on your comprehension of database search terms, explain why Marcus retrieved so many irrelevant records and decide what adjustments he should make to his search terms to retrieve highly relevant articles.
Sample answer: Marcus retrieved a massive number of irrelevant records because academic databases contain millions of records, and 'sleep' is a very broad search term that appears in many unrelated studies. To fix this, Marcus should comprehend that he needs to experiment with more specific search terms and combinations, such as combining 'sleep deprivation' and 'academic performance' or 'college students', to narrow the results to articles directly relevant to his research topic.
Key points:
- A single broad search term like 'sleep' retrieves too many irrelevant records due to the millions of entries in academic databases.
- Marcus needs to experiment with more specific search terms rather than a single broad term.
- Marcus must combine multiple terms (e.g., 'sleep deprivation' and 'academic performance') to retrieve highly relevant articles.
Rubric: The response must show comprehension of how database size and term breadth lead to excessive, irrelevant results. It must also correctly explain the need to increase specificity and use combinations of search terms to target college student sleep deprivation and academic performance.
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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU
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