Numerous studies have shown that thinking aloud while reading can be an effective instructional technique in helping students improve their reading comprehension. However, most of the studies that examined the effects of think-aloud involve subjects reading individually and carried out in isolation away from the classroom context. Recently,…

Researchers examined data from perceptual instruments administered to participants (36 undergraduate education students) during and following problem solving sessions. Think-aloud and interview analysis resulted in combining examination of the problems with the motivations and perceptions of the problem solvers. The nonemergent qualitative design…

This paper examines the mathematical conversations of middle school students as they use computer-mediated graphic representations to construct a shared understanding of the basic concepts of probability under two conditions. The first condition used graphical representations to depict important abstract relationships visually, and the second…

High ability, highly verbal fifth grade students (n=12) were studied, by employing think aloud protocols, to identify students' use of learning strategies, encoding processes, and navigational decisions in a hypermedia lesson on propaganda techniques. Subjects were asked to read and think aloud as they worked their way through the concept lesson…

This study is designed to develop teaching materials, including a student text and a teacher's manual, for a new descriptive statistics curriculum unit for the mathematics curriculum of the first 2 years in the Junior College of Commerce or the business high school in Taiwan. Other goals of the study included investigating the appropriateness and…

Differences among students can yield rich benefits as well as pose difficult problems during collaborative learning. Students can draw on diverse individual experiences to exchange information, to understand different expressions of shared commonalities, and to construct new possibilities jointly. However, they also face the potential pitfalls of…

This study examined planning processes and the acquisition of expert problem solving skills among individuals of different expertise on tasks of increasing complexity. Twelve French-speaking adult students of machining (novices) and 12 French-speaking teachers of machining (experts) in Quebec (Canada) were randomly assigned to a simple or complex…

A study explored how writers with extensive experience and learning in an academic discipline used both topical and rhetorical knowledge to construct synthesis essays. Subjects, 20 psychology graduate students and 20 business graduate students, wrote synthesis essays on either the topics of "supply-side economics" or "rehearsal in…

Under the Teacher Education Center (TEC) Act in Florida, the state's universities, colleges and public school districts were placed into a collaborative working relationship. Using money allocated by the state, school districts can contract with one or more universities or colleges for the delivery of inservice. This paper illustrates strategies…

Examines the methodological procedures of expert systems being used in reading research. Identifies four methodological techniques: (1) intact group comparisons, think-aloud protocols, retrospective analysis, and naturalistic inquiry. Notes internal validity threats for each type, and recommends longitudinal descriptive studies on poor readers to…

Looking collaboratively at student and teacher work is a process in which teachers primarily, but also administrators, parents, students, and members of the community, look at student and/or teacher work with the goal of improving student learning. To structure the process and create a safe, caring environment, teachers use a protocol to…

This paper reports on an investigation of learning strategy applications in elementary foreign language immersion classrooms. The focus of the paper is on identifying strategies more and less effective learners use for classroom reading and writing tasks in the target language. Think-aloud data from third grade and fourth grade students were…

The hypothesis that task-specific criterion-referenced self-assessment can have a positive effect on students' metacognitive engagement and learning was tested. Seventh graders (n=47) were asked to invent, apply, and explain a classification system for a group of animals. Treatment subjects periodically assessed their performance in terms of a…

Discussion of the evaluation of courseware focuses on a study conducted to evaluate the Health and Fitness Assessment (HAFA) program, which was designed to elicit problem solving skills to assess health and fitness parameters and develop exercise prescriptions. Protocol analysis is described and the analysis of interpretive statements is…

This qualitative study evaluated the cognitive style construct field-dependent/independent as a selection criteria for student subjects for formative evaluation of instructional material. Four college students interacting with a computer-assisted instruction package were observed, and data on subject readiness, researcher/subject interactions,…