USING THINK-ALOUD AUDIO RECORDINGS TO UNDERSTAND PATTERNS OF THOUGHTS DURING GEOLOGIC MAPPING

Asking someone to think aloud as they work to solve a problem is a common method for capturing a person’s thought process while completing a task. This strategy is typically used in laboratory-based settings in which participants can be prompted to speak if they remain quiet for long durations. Tasks are also typically of short duration, on the order of minutes to a couple of hours.

The task of constructing a geologic map is a cognitively- and physically-demanding field-based problem. In a typical field day of mapping, the geologist is outdoors for many hours and traverses large areas of sometimes steep terrain. The purpose of this study is twofold: to investigate the application of think-aloud methods to field-based studies, and to analyze the resultant audio logs to identify patterns in the thought processes of geologists while making a geologic map. We asked eight different geologists of varying levels of expertise to record their thoughts aloud while field mapping. Participants included four men and four women, two undergraduates, two graduate students, as well as four professionals with up to 23 years of experience. The participants worked alone and did not have a researcher accompany them during the day.

From emergent thematic coding of the participants’ recordings, we find several patterns in the development of their mental models of the field area. Some participants explicitly propose a model early and then refer to that model to guide their thoughts and actions in the field and those whose statements about a model are disconnected from their statements of their thoughts and actions in the field. Participant comments also capture the multiple dimensions of uncertainty in the task such as identifying rocks types and structural features, noting location in the field and on the maps, testing ideas, and synthesizing and revising mental models. We note, too, that participants are able to record entries on a regular basis over the course of 4-5 hours without a researcher present to prompt their commentary. Thus we argue that another implication for this study is the expansion of the think-aloud methodology to field-based settings in which the participants are engaged in multiple-hour tasks.