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Think-aloud Protocols (think-aloud + protocol)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	75%

Selected Abstracts

Diagnostic reasoning strategies and diagnostic success

MEDICAL EDUCATION, Issue 8 2003
S Coderre
Purpose Cognitive psychology research supports the notion that experts use mental frameworks or ,schemes', both to organize knowledge in memory and to solve clinical problems. The central purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between problem-solving strategies and the likelihood of diagnostic success. Methods Think-aloud protocols were collected to determine the diagnostic reasoning used by experts and non-experts when attempting to diagnose clinical presentations in gastroenterology. Results Using logistic regression analysis, the study found that there is a relationship between diagnostic reasoning strategy and the likelihood of diagnostic success. Compared to hypothetico-deductive reasoning, the odds of diagnostic success were significantly greater when subjects used the diagnostic strategies of pattern recognition and scheme-inductive reasoning. Two other factors emerged as independent determinants of diagnostic success: expertise and clinical presentation. Not surprisingly, experts outperformed novices, while the content area of the clinical cases in each of the four clinical presentations demonstrated varying degrees of difficulty and thus diagnostic success. Conclusions These findings have significant implications for medical educators. It supports the introduction of ,schemes' as a means of enhancing memory organization and improving diagnostic success. [source]

Concurrent and retrospective verbal reports as tools to better understand the role of attention in second language tasks

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF APPLIED LINGUISTICS, Issue 2 2003
Joaquim Camps
This study investigates how the use of think-aloud protocols, both concurrent and retrospective, can contribute to the study of the role of attention in second language acquisition. It is based on the analysis of think-aloud protocols produced by 74 first-year learners of Spanish during and immediately after a reading and multiple-choice activity. The activity consisted of a text with direct object pronouns and 16 blanks for which a choice of three possible antecedents was given. The key to making the right choice was attending to both form and meaning in the input. The data in the think-aloud protocols was classified into mentions of the pronouns in the text as well as references to gender and number agreement. The results showed that mention of the targeted structure in the think-aloud protocols was related to better performance on the task for second-semester students, but not for first-semester students. There was some difference in the results for the concurrent and retrospective protocols. The possible complementary nature of these two sources of data is discussed. [source]

Constructing press releases, constructing quotations: A case study

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 2 2003
Kim Sleurs
This paper reports on empirical research into how press releases are being constructed. It starts from previous discourse-analytic work which has pointed to the ,preformulated' nature of press releases: in particular, it has been shown that through a number of metapragmatic features press releases can easily be copied by journalists in their own news reporting. In this paper we set out to subject one of these features, viz. pseudo-quotations (or so-called constructed direct speech), to a further empirical study, in which we scrutinize the process of constructing the press releases. We propose a detailed analysis of this process by combining ethnographic fieldwork with some of the methodology of cognitive psychology, including think-aloud protocols and on-line registration of the writing process. On the basis of this case study it is concluded that the design and functions of quotations in press releases are more complex than has been assumed so far. In addition, our preliminary results indicate that the combination of methods that we propose in this paper provides a sound starting point for both quantitative and qualitative analysis, allowing for a detailed analysis and interpretation of how press releases are being constructed. [source]

The Contribution of Collaborative and Individual Tasks to the Acquisition of L2 Vocabulary

MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 1 2008
YOUJIN KIM
Over the past 2 decades, research has demonstrated that learner collaboration facilitates second language (L2) acquisition (Lapkin, Swain, & Smith, 2002; McDonough, 2004; Storch, 1998, 2004; Swain & Lapkin, 1998). Adopting a sociocultural perspective (e.g., Swain & Lapkin, 1998), the current study compared the effectiveness of collaborative and individual tasks on the acquisition of L2 vocabulary by Korean as a second language (KSL) learners (N= 32). The learners completed a pretest, a dictogloss task, and two posttests over a 3-week period. Half the learners carried out the dictogloss in pairs, but the other half worked individually while thinking aloud. The collaborative dialogue and think-aloud protocols were transcribed, and language-related episodes (LREs) were identified. The results indicated that although the learners who participated in the collaborative task had a similar number of LREs as the learners who worked individually, they performed significantly better on the vocabulary tests. The pedagogical implications for the use of collaborative tasks to promote the acquisition of L2 vocabulary are discussed. [source]