Think-aloud protocol has been identified to be an effective qualitative tool to obtain a verbalized account of the mental thought processes of participants. Can anyone share their experiences of running this protocol in your research?
Think aloud protocol has been used to develop The Bristol Impact of Hypermobility Questionnaire by Prof. Shea T Palmer , have a look at his publication and you will find your answer.
Hello Najla,
Thank you so much for referring to Prof. Shea's article. They have used 'Think-aloud' technique in the 2nd stage of the questionnaire design. I will go through it and it looks very interesting as they have followed a mixed method approach.
Dear Babu,
I agree with you on the idea that think-aloud protocols have been identified to be an effective qualitative tool to obtain a verbalized account of the mental thought processes of participants.
Let me start bay saying that the underlying processes at issue when, for example, one solves a cognitive task cannot be observed, but only infered. As Wittgenstein once remarked "inner processes are in lack of outer criteria" The think aloud tool can be a good device or outer criterion to get access to the underlying processes at issue when, for example, one solves a Piaget's proportionality task, such as descrived in what follows:
"On this table -- the interviewer says to the interviewee -- we have two transparent bags, bag A and bag B. Bag A contains 2 white coins and 3 black coins. Bag B contains 3 white coins and 4 black coins. Where is it more likely to get at a first trial a white coin: In A, in B, or is it equally likely to get the focal coin in both A and B. Can you explain to me why is this so?". Interviewee's justifcation for his/her answer is clearly a think aloud procedure or tool to get acceess to the mental processes underlying the interviewee's answer. Let us imagine that the interviewee says that it is equally likely to get a white coin in both A and B because in both bags there is one more black coin than white coins ( 3 - 2 = 1 in bag A; 4 - 3 = 1). Even though this is true, the answer is incorrect because it is more likely to get a white coin in B than in A. In fact, when we divide 2/3 (bag A) and 3/4 (bag B), the ratio in B in greater in A. The same is the case when we divise the favorabe cases by the possible cases (2/5, bag A; 3/7, bag B). This is a clear example of a think aloud tool through which we can get access to the underlying mental processes at issue when one solves the focal task. It is only through the underlying mental processes that we see if a given answer on the proportionality task is correct/incorrect.
I hope I has got your post and that this helps.
Best regards,
Orlando
Dear Orlando,
Thank you so much for providing such a detailed description. It cleared a lot of questions that I had in my mind.
Mr. Noushad
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