DO ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS? COMPARING AUDIO AND VIDEO RECORDS OF REASONING IN THE FIELD

A common methodology in studies of scientific reasoning is the analysis of participant verbalizations. In some cases, the approach is to ask participants to think aloud as they complete a problem solving task. These verbalizations are typically comprised of fragmented and incomplete sentences that may be challenging to decipher without a secondary data source. Another approach is to have participants explain their thinking after completing a task. These verbalizations tend to be expressed as complete sentences, but are also vulnerable to retrospective interpretation. For both approaches, the problems are usually designed to be completed in a matter of minutes. Less common are problems that take an hour or more to complete.

In this project, we conducted two different kinds of extended, multi-hour think-aloud studies. We asked sixteen geologists with varying levels of experience to think out loud as they completed a geologic mapping problem in the field. Eight of the participants carried a hand-held audio-recorder and made entries over the course of their mapping. To provide context, participants were asked to announce the time at the beginning of each entry in their audio recording. The other eight participants wore a head-mounted video camera with attached audio recorder that were running continuously over the day. Video data were automatically time stamped by the recording device. Participants were entirely self-prompted and not accompanied by a researcher. On average, participants needed 6.5 hours to complete the task. Overall, both approaches captured expressed thoughts over the full time participants were in the field. Verbalizations made using audio recorders resemble retrospective verbal reports: thoughts are commonly spoken in complete sentences. Some participants, though, did not always provide time stamps making it difficult to track reasoning over the day. Verbalizations recorded with video cameras tended to be more fragmented. The video data, though, provided context for the geologists’ thinking as well as visual evidence of their actions. Finally, comparisons of audio recordings and audio-video recordings in the field with end-of-task debriefing audio-video files provide interesting insights into field researcher verbalization strategies across a variety of settings.