Upper-elementary students encounter a sometimes dizzying array of traditional and nontraditional texts both in and outside of the classroom. This practical handbook helps teachers in grades 4-6 harness the instructional potential of fiction, poetry, and plays; informational texts; graphic novels; digital storytelling; Web-based and multimodal…

As an exercise in understanding the cognitive processes underlying reading, second language teacher trainees were asked to read a text and say aloud everything they said to themselves silently. the text used, a rhyme-riddle intended for use with elementary school learners of English as a Second Language, was appropriate for the students, required…

This report described and analyzed different methods for constructing a student's cognitive map in order to study the development and use of domain-specific prior knowledge. Cognitive maps provide accounts of student trajectories over courses and individual or group profiles of learners' strengths and weaknesses at the course or multicourse level.…

Subcellular processes like meiosis are frequently problematic for learners because they are complex and, except for the extent that they can be observed under a light microscope, occur outside of our direct experience. More detailed characterization of what underlies various degrees of student understanding of a process is required to more fully…

A study investigated the writing of language arts report cards. Eleven elementary teachers from three districts volunteered to compose report cards while thinking aloud. The teachers worked in districts that exerted varying degrees of control over teachers' choice of language arts instructional materials and assessment. Analysis of the 75 report…

This study investigated the musical thinking of two composers through the use of concurrent protocol analysis and examinined their problems, funded experience, and reflective thinking. The objective was to determine the extent to which there is an observed or implicit paradigm of reflective thinking in the thinking of a practicing composer. The…

Mental models or implicit theories held by adults about everyday problem solving were studied. Research questions were posed to 12 male and 12 female adults, aged 25 to 60 years, from a wide range of educational and occupational orientations. Subjects were interviewed in pairs. Verbal Protocol Analysis was used to analyze the data from two…

A study investigated audience news comprehension, focusing on objective knowledge questions measuring "acquaintance with" as contrasted to "knowledge of" as indexed by cognitive complexity and the frames of cognitive structure. A single continuing story--the Tax Reform bill that was moving through the United States Congress at…

A protocol for analyzing the activity structure of a classroom lesson was developed and field tested. The protocol can be completed on site by a person serving as both observer and analyst. Validity of the protocol was established by reference to the large body of qualitative research on activity structure and the analysis of teaching. The…

Designed to examine the structural differences in the representation of medical problems in subjects with varying degrees of medical expertise, this study uses an online, thinking-aloud technique to investigate the validity of Feltovich and Barrows' model of expert medical knowledge and illness scripts. Study methodology involved asking one…

This study is the sixth in a series of reports from the Reading-to-Write Project, a collaborative study of students' cognitive processes at one critical point of entry into academic performance. This report provides an in-depth look at how students use elaboration (bringing prior knowledge to a task), how much value elaborative material adds, and…

This paper describes a research and development project in teaching designed to examine whether and how it might be possible to bring the meaning of knowing mathematics in school closer to what it means to know mathematics within the descipline by deliberately altering the roles and responsibilities of teacher and students in classroom discourse.…

A case study examined how a basic writer read, identified, and proposed solutions to textual problems in two drafts of texts that she wished to improve. The subject engaged in a modified form of a think-aloud protocol and an open-ended interview. Data generated from the participant were analyzed to determine the degree of miscue, the kinds of…

A study examined how often basic writers miscued, the kinds of miscues they made, the possible factors related to why they made miscues, whether they corrected their miscues, and the degree to which miscues may have prevented them from seeing textual problems. Subjects, three female basic writers (part of a larger study) participated in four taped…

Leow (2001a) employed concurrent data elicitation procedures (think aloud protocols) to investigate the benefits of textual enhancement, premised on the roles of attention and awareness (noticing), in second/foreign language (L2) learning. The present study follows this methodological approach to further investigate these benefits in addition to…