Data Collection and Analysis Technique.

 This overview relates to the following article:

Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: A practical guide. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(3), 271-315.

Quantifying Qualitative Analyses of Verbal Data

It has become increasingly needed in educational and cognitive science research to collect and analyse messy data – Messy data can be seen as those items such as verbal explanations, observations, videotaping and gestures[1].  This data is required to give a complete understanding of a skill or learning something other than just numerical or qualitative data.

Verbal data and observational data are two forms of data which can be used to in this situation.  Both of these data analysis forms have been used for some time.

Verbal Analysis is a methodology for quantifying the subjective or qualitative coding of verbal utterances (what a subject said).  The verbal analysis method is embedded in research to understand cognition, and the kind of knowledge one gains from learning. Verbal analysis can include more than just verbal data, and can be adapted to include various non cognitive issues (social motivational and behavioural) by the use of observational and video data.

The goal of verbal analysis is to capture the representation of knowledge that a learner has learnt and how that changes with the acquisition of learning.  Using verbal analysis to uncover what a learner knows the analysis of verbal utterances’ (what the learner said) is needed.  Analysing the utterances not just I the words, but the other elements which can underlie the words such as pointing and expressions and the impact that this can have on the acquisition of learning.   

The most frequent and systematic use of verbal data is in the context of protocol analysis. The differences between verbal analysis and protocol analysis are:

• Instruction
• The goal or focus.
• The analysis
• The validation
• The conclusion.

The first difference focuses on the way verbal data is collected.

Protocol Analysis – uses think aloud protocols (Ericsson and Simon 1984, 1993)[2] where subjects instructed to verbalise the information they attended to while solving a problem.

Talking is more than pointing at numbers. Think aloud analysis discourages any description of what subjects are doing. These descriptions, explanations and justifications are known as Explaining.

My personal thoughts on the article.

This article provided an overview of the difference methods of both qualitative and quantitative methods of research and the use of the verbal and observational analysis and how the use of multiple methods of data (e.g. video, and visual as well as the spoken word)  

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[1] Chi, M. T. H. (1997). Quantifying qualitative analyses of verbal data: A practical guide. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 6(3), 271-315.

[2]  Ericsson, K. A., & Simon H. (1984). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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