By: cath milne

cath milne — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 01:53:44 +0000

I found this paper by Roth and Middleton to be thought provoking for a selfish reason. I am involved with a multidisciplinary research group that is working together to design, develop and evaluate multimedia chemistry simulations. These simulations are being developed for use by students who have little prior knowledge of the chemistry concepts or understandings that are the focus of the simulations. One of the strategies used to evaluate the cognitive load of different versions of the simulations is a think aloud protocol. I have always been critical of this method because my experience has been similar to that criticized by Roth and Middleton that think alouds have been used, usually not very effectively, to examine underlying knowledge and beliefs of students as they use language to articulate their understandings. What a relief to read Roth and Middleton as they examine the asymmetries of meaning that emerge when think aloud protocols are thought of as organized social interactions that are highly context sensitive. We are asking students to use think aloud protocols as they use a specific simulation. Obviously, we will not have the asymmetries or the pitch matching described by Roth and Middleton as they examined the interactions between a professor interviewee and a graduate student intervieweer but their analysis helps me to think about these interactions in a more productive way than being openly dismissive of the possibilites of think aloud protocols!

Comments on: Knowing What You Tell, Telling What You Know: Uncertainty and Asymmetries of Meaning in Interpreting Graphical Data

By: cath milne