Impact of inference skills (abductive, inductive, deductive) on business information retrieval on the World-Wide Web

This dissertation investigated influence of inference skills on information retrieval on the Web. Volunteers provided topics that were searched by the topic owner as well as other users. In all, forty topics resulted in 200 searches retrieving 3484 documents. In addition, each user completed standardized tests in inference skills of abduction, induction, and deduction.; The application of abductive inference as a skill in Web search is introduced. The use of all three inference skills is analyzed as determiners of Web search success. Other factors such as perceived specificity of topic are analyzed as pertains to effective Web retrieval.; This dissertation also investigated whether inference skills aided new queries after a first query was run to provide feedback.; Results indicate a significant relation between the inference skill of abduction and retrieval success. Results also found inductive and deductive skills play a role in retrieval, although not always to a significant level. Other significant factors on retrieval success include background knowledge and specificity of problem definition.; This dissertation contributes to studies of information retrieval by analysis of inference skills used in retrieval, particularly that of abduction. This dissertation extends analysis of other inference skills such as induction and deduction, and other factors such as background knowledge, to search on the World-Wide Web.