THINK ALOUD PROTOCOL ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY

Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1993) identified a critical problem with subjects general descriptions of the cognitive processes and experiences is that such reports do not relate clearly to any specific observable behaviour. They highlight that when asking a participant to report on their cognitive processes used during many trials of an experiment we cannot rule out the possibility that the

information they retrieve at the time of the verbal report is different from the information they retrieve while actually performing the experimental task.

As a result Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1993) proposed a verbal protocol analysis method. Protocol analysis is a process-tracing technique to identify the cognitive processes of individuals while completing a task. Individuals are asked to verbalise their thinking during or immediately after an

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action in order to examine the sequences of a cognitive task or event occurring between the presentation of a problem and generation of an answer. Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1993), propose that the current contents of STM include information about the end products of mental processes, and an accurate retrieval of at least some of this STM content is possible via use of particular forms of verbal probing. Ericsson and Simon (1980, 1993) proposed three differentiating levels of

verbalisations, Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3 verbalisations. Each level is characterised by the amount of additional processing involved in the production of the verbalisations.

Level 1 verbalisation is simply the vocalisation of inner speech where the individual does not need to make any effort to communicate his or her thoughts. It is a direct process in which thoughts that are already activated as verbal articulations are verbalised. For example, when an individual is asked to think aloud while taking part in a mental arithmetic task they may verbalise the following, “11 times 4,” “hmm if you carry over the 1 and add the 4”. Level 2 verbalisation involves the verbal encoding and vocalisation of an internal representation that is not originally in verbal code (Ericsson & Simon, 1990). For example, verbal encoding, vocalisation of scents, visual stimuli, or movement. With this level of verbalisation, only the information that is in the participants focus is to be verbalised. Level 3 verbalisation requires the individual to explain his or her thoughts, ideas or hypotheses or their

motives. For example, explaining why a certain shot or club is selected in golf. Some researchers have argued that instructing participants to think aloud or consciously attend to a skill may interfere with thought processes and negatively impact on task performance. With Level 1 and Level 2

verbalisation, the sequence of thought processes involved in making a decision should remain intact as no additional information is required. Level 3 verbalisation involves explaining one’s thoughts and it requires attention to additional information and may change the sequence of cognitive processes. As a result Level 3 verbalisation is thought to be less valid as it requires an additional process of retrieval from the LTM.

Ericsson and Simon (1980) proposed that the only information about mental processes that an individual is thought to be able to access and in turn verbalise is that attended to in the STM during the execution of a task. With some exceptions, the intermediate and end products of those processes

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are held in STM during task execution. It is these verbalisations or products which can allow the experimenter to make inferences about the processes themselves.

As a results of the above, a number of researchers have used the Think Aloud protocol analysis as a method of collecting information about an athlete’s thought process in sport and golf putting in particular (Calmeiro and Tenembaum, 2011), appraisals and coping in trap shooting (Calmeiro, Tenenbaum, Eccles, 2010), gender differences in stress, appraisal and coping in golf putting (Kaiseler, Polman & Nicholls, 2012) expert novice differences planning strategies in tennis (McPherson, 1993, McPherson & Kernodle, 2007) and decision making in poker (Germain & Tenenbaum, 2011).

Think Aloud is not without limitations. The social dynamic of the setting can lead a participant to augment verbalisation with descriptions and explanations of thought that are not part of their actual thoughts being experienced at that time (Eccles, 2012). In addition, when asking participants to verbalise their thoughts there is no independent means of assessing their completeness (Wilson, 1994). Furthermore, Ericsson and Simon (1993) acknowledge that even concurrent reports will be incomplete under some circumstances because some cognitive processes are not part of focused attention, or appear in a form that is not easily verbalisable.

As Level 3 verbalisation involves explaining one’s thoughts it requires attention to additional information and may change the sequence of cognitive processes (Ericsson & Simon, 1993). Level 3 verbalisation, however, could provide further information to gain a fuller understanding of the thought processes in decision making in some sports. For example, in golf, players make numerous decisions about shot selection, and Level 2 verbalisation may not provide enough detail of the thought processes involved in this decision. Level 3 verbalisation may give a clearer explanation of the variables

considered in shot selection.

A recent meta-analysis by Fox, Ericsson and Best (2011) compared performance on tasks that involved concurrent verbal reporting conditions with their matching silent control conditions. They found that instructing participants to merely verbalise their thoughts during a task did not alter performance, whereas directing participants to provide explanations for their thoughts actually

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improved performance. For example, Gagne and Smith (1962) explained that asking participants to verbalise their reasoning when completing the Tower of Hanoi produced more efficient solutions (taking fewer moves), and suggested that the instruction to verbalise the reasons for moves induced more deliberate planning.

In the meta-analysis by Fox et al. (2011) the majority of tasks were cognitive. To the author of this thesis’s knowledge no previous studies have examined the influence of think aloud protocol on motor performance. If TA is to be used more widely to examine decision making in sports it is important to establish if TA interferes with performance on sport tasks (Calmeiro & Tenenbaum, 2011). In terms of a motor skill, it can be argued that the level of skill that the performer possesses could also relate to the effect that thinking aloud and explaining one’s thoughts has on performance. Hence, for skilled performers, which are assumed to be in the automatic phase of skill learning, it could be suggested that focussing attention on the skill itself degrades performance (Schmidt, 1982; Masters et al., 1993). It has been proposed that performers in the automatic phase of skill learning will execute the skill in an open-loop fashion where there is little conscious control and processing required. Whereas a novice will be in the closed loop, feedback driven mode, and attention demanding processing (Schmidt & Wrisberg, 2000).

In terms of thinking aloud during motor performance, high level performers may experience

decrements in their performance due to interference with their open-loop mode of execution, whereas novice athletes may perform better as explaining thoughts may act as feedback for the task at hand. However, as this has not been investigated this can only be suggested. Therefore, it is important that further research examines whether verbalising during sport and golf performance interferes with task outcome in order to validate concurrent verbal protocols as a valid ecological method in the domain of sport (Calmeiro and Tenenbaum, 2011).

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