Assessing the Structure of Verbal Protocols

One approach that has been used to study processes that give rise to comprehension is to have readers verbally report their understanding during reading. The thoughts that readers produce usually contain multiple clauses that convey different kinds of processing strategies, such as paraphrasing, bridging, or elaborations. The goal of this study was to examine the structure of verbal protocols and to identify whether there was a sequence to the information sources that comprised a given verbal report. Participants produced think-aloud protocols while reading scientific texts. With respect to whether there was an identifiable sequence to the information contained in a verbal protocol, the results indicated that participants tended to begin their protocols with information from the current sentence before adding information from world knowledge and the prior text. As additional clauses were produced, there was a shift in focus from the current sentence to elaborative information.