Fox, Ericsson, and Best's (2011) thoughtful justification of the use of think-aloud protocols for revealing the stream of consciousness comes on the centennial of the death of William James, history's greatest practitioner and advocate of introspection. This confluence naturally invites speculation about how James might have responded to the…

Contains (1) A Comment on "Protocols, Retrospective Reports, and the Stream of Consciousness" (Victor J. Vitanza); (2) "Erwin R. Steinberg Responds"; (3) A Comment on "Intertextuality and the Cultural Text in Recent Semiotics" (Stephen Kogan); and (4) Two Comments on "College English" (Kenneth E. Eble, Jean…

This paper presents an overview of research on physics problem solving using verbal protocols. It asserts that the understanding of physics problem solving strategies enables researchers to write computer programs, which can automatically solve physics problems without the users having to be experts in physics. This, in turn, can generate more…

Replies to Steinberg's article on protocol analysis in this issue and argues that even if the writing process is a problem-solving process, it is too complex to analyze sufficiently using protocols. (SRT)

Explores how a set of possible student misconceptions about solving a complex problem can be used in computer-based intelligent tutoring systems and in computer-based exercise and test generation. Topics discussed include expert systems, misconception covers, discrimination trees, methods of acquiring the set of misconceptions, and protocol…

Discussion of differences between problem-solving techniques of novices and experts suggests that both the experts' mental model and common novice problems can be derived from analyses of several expert and novice protocols. Three instructional strategies based on these differences are discussed, including the use of a computer simulation to solve…

Proposes the use of procedural task analysis as a tool to assess a person's mental processes during problem solving in science education research. Uses transcriptions of videotape or audiotape problem-solving sessions to identify students' knowledge structures and misconceptions. (MDH)