Department of Health Sciences Faculty Articles
Title
Generating Thinking-Aloud Protocols: Impact on the Narrative Writing of College Students
ISBN or ISSN
0002-9556
Volume
108
Issue
1
Publication Date / Copyright Date
Spring 1995
First Page
89
Last Page
98
Publisher
University of Illinois Press
DOI Number
10.2307/1423102
Abstract
The reactivity of protocol analysis, a widely used process-tracing method in writing research, was investigated. Writers composed a letter to a close friend in each of three conditions: a concurrent thinking-aloud protocol, a retrospective protocol based on watching a real-time replay of the original composition, and a no-protocol control. The rate at which words were composed per minute and clauses created per minute was significantly slower in the thinking-aloud condition, presumably because of the additional demands of verbalization. Intrusions, or content occurring because of writing in a psychology experiment, were also assessed. The percentage of intrusions referring to being in an experiment, or to content in general, were the same across conditions. Thinking aloud slowed the rate of composition, but did not reliably alter the syntactic complexity or quantity of words or clauses written.
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences
Keywords
Writing Processes, Literary Criticism, Reactivity, Writing Exercises, Grammatical Clauses, Written Composition, Writing Assignments, Writing Research, Writing, Cognitive Psychology
NSUWorks Citation
Ransdell, Sarah Ellen PhD, "Generating Thinking-Aloud Protocols: Impact on the Narrative Writing of College Students" (1995). Department of Health Sciences Faculty Articles. 246.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hpd_hs_facarticles/246