Educational Research Methods
A site to support teaching and learning...
Think aloud
(Talk aloud)
Think aloud (or talk aloud) is a means of eliciting aspects of a person’s thinking whilst they undertake a task.
In effect this is a data collection technique based on observation which is interventionist rather than naturalistic (that is what is observed is set up by the researcher, and not the normal activity of the participant.)
“In ‘think aloud’ techniques, students may be asked to talk through their thinking as they complete a task. This may allow us to identify thinking that is not directly observable...
Think aloud can be very useful, but has some drawbacks. It can only access thinking the participant is aware of (and much of our thinking is pre-conscious, i.e., occurs without our conscious awareness), and it is only suitable for tasks where the person has capacity to talk about what they are doing as they do it. Moreover, it is suggested that in most studies about a tenth of potential participants prove incapable of talking about what they are doing, and still do it, whatever the task!
Where think aloud is not feasible, it may be possible to use stimulated recall, where students are video-recorded completing a task and then interviewed to ask them about what they might have been thinking or feeling at different points in the recording...” (Taber, 2013: 279-280)
This is a personal site of Keith S. Taber to support teaching of educational research methods.
(Dr Keith Taber is Professor of Science Education at the University of Cambridge.)
2016
Taber, K. S. (2013). Classroom-based Research and Evidence-based Practice: An introduction (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
