Understanding relevance judgment in the view of perceived value

While researchers have explored and proposed dozens of user relevance judgment criteria (RJC) in various situations, there is a lack of empirical research on the effects of RJC on user relevance judgment and how. The study sought to develop relations between RJC and situational relevance (SR) via four perceived values, epistemic value, functional value, conditional value, and social value, by introducing multi-factors perceived value (PV) theory and structural equation modeling (SEM). The study developed a RJC model basing on multi-factors PV and derived seven hypotheses to be verified. The data of the use of RJC and self-estimation of PVs from 453 people who were all participants of a national data sharing competition were collected by questionnaire, and then were verified and analyzed by SEM to test the hypotheses. The results verify the effectiveness of four PVs on SR with different levels. Meanwhile, it also suggests that RJC can function as the measurements of PVs and reduce RJC as well. Based on the above process, the study puts forward a new definition of SR based on four information values and verifies the SR judgment model—information value-utility model. The research provides theoretical basis and measurement dimensions for understanding and measuring SR. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.