Generating Thinking-Aloud Protocols: Impact on the Narrative Writing of College Students

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.