Think-Aloud Protocols and Type of Reading Task: The Issue of Reactivity in L2 Reading Research

“Protocol analysis” or “think-alouds” or have been extensively employed in the fields of psychology and cognitive science as a verbal-report method of producing concurrent verbalization. Think-alouds require participants to tell researchers what they are thinking and doing while performing a task. The participants are usually instructed to keep thinking aloud, acting as if they are alone in the room speaking to themselves. Think-aloud protocols are tapeand/or video-recorded and then transcribed for content analysis. The think-aloud protocols are, in many cases, coded for specific categories which have previously been developed by the researcher. In the past few decades, think-aloud protocols have been used in SLA research to observe the cognitive processes involved in the use and acquisition of language. The major SLA areas where think-alouds have been extensively utilized are Reading, Writing, and Testing. Language acquisition, discourse research, and research on attention and awareness have been also major areas which have recently benefited from this methodology. Think-aloud protocols have provided language acquisition researchers with information as to the types of strategies employed by learners when interacting with L2 tasks, what types of input induce most noticing, what types of process can be predicted by particular type of verbal reports, and so on. L2 reading research has also relied upon think-aloud protocols to analyze reading processes, because reading is normally a silent, hidden process, researchers cannot determine what is happening by simple observation or by product-based assessment. Asking readers to provide verbal reports or protocols is the most direct way to access this process. Other methodologies to investigate readers reading processes are, strategy questionnaires, interviews, eye-movement indices, and oral reading. Because think-aloud protocols provide concurrently gathered data of verbal products, on the other hand, it enables researchers to examine in-depth and compare reading processes in particular reading conditions, such as L1 and L2 reading (Block, 1992), test taking (Alderson, 1990), L1 and L2 narrative reading (Zwaan & Brown, 1996), mental translation processes (Kern, 1994), and task conditions (Horiba, 2000). Recent studies (Leow & Morgan-Short, 2004; Bowles & Leow, 2005) have empirically addressed the issue of reactivity on L2 acquisition – the act of thinking aloud potentially triggering changes in learners’ cognitive processes while performing the task. However, the reactivity effects of thinking-aloud on L2 reading comprehension and processes have not been fully investigated, especially in relation with the type of task readers engage in while reading. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate the effects of thinking-aloudon L2 reading in terms of reading time, comprehension, and interaction with while-reading tasks.