My experience with Stimulated Recall was much more effective than my use of the Think Aloud protocol last week. Although I wish I used Stimulated Recall directly after my Think Aloud, I reintroduced the material and the recording before I asked my student to recall his reasoning during the writing process. My "data" was much more detailed and revealing than the Think Aloud.
For example, when I asked my student how he found the words to explain "his dreams" (the class writing assignment based on Cisnero's The House on Mango Street). He told me, "well I spoke them in my mind, but sometimes when I typed them... I didn't like them so I edited them until I liked them". This appeared to evidence of what Flower and Hayes referred to as goal setting and translation. My student appeared to set a goal for his assignment and then translate his ideas into words.
My second question about the assignment was about my student's use of similes throughout the paper. I was impressed by the use of similes, but I had to ask when he incorporated the literary devices into the paper. He told me that, "after my first draft I thought it looked sweet and good, but then, I wanted to make it amazing and I tried to add the similes. So I read it and thought about where I could add them and the I typed them and and...um... keep the one's I liked the most." This reflection made me think of the revision and discovery part of Flower and Hayes writing process.
Overall, I found this process more effective than the Think Aloud, but I was glad that I had the original recording to refer to during the recall procedure.
Hi Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI also thought my stimulated recall went a lot better than my think aloud and it also provided more data. I thought your questions really sparked your participant’s thinking and his responses (recall) made his writing process clear.
Also, thank you for the background and putting this writing piece in context (House on Mango Street by Cisnero). So interesting to see how your examples connected to Flower and Hayes.
Thanks for sharing,
Jeannie
It seems like we all shared a similar experience - more success with the stimulated recall - maybe because as an activity it has a more concrete objective.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like an interesting assignment and one that works well with both of these protocols.
I wonder if the student revision of this particular piece of writing was an assignment or if it was something the student did on his own. Was the inclusion of similes part of the assignment, or again, something that the student included on his own?