Verbal reports in the reading processes of language learners: A methodological review

Abstract

This methodological review highlights the trends in empirical studies where a methodological construct (i.e. verbal reports) intersects with content (i.e. literacy research). Specifically, we synthesise research on language learners’ reading in which verbal reports were deployed as a methodological tool. Questioning the long‐standing assumption that verbal report methods validated in first‐language verbal report reading studies necessarily constitute a basis for validation of second‐language verbal report reading studies, we consider the broader educational frameworks within which studies are embedded. In our synthesis of language learners’ verbal report literacy research published between 2000 and 2015, we attend to the social, demographic and geographic realities characteristic of studies reviewed and of the participants involved. Our findings demonstrate the following: (a) tendency to report quantitative information regardless of the type of verbal reporting method and the component of reading explored; (b) predominance of independent concurrent methods that emphasised the reading product; (c) predominance of integrated verbal reports (i.e. concurrent and other forms of reporting) in sociocultural studies that reflected the reading process; (d) concerns about validity in studies premised on cognitivist models of verbal reports; (e) a tendency to use solely concurrent verbal reports in quantitative studies; (f) high reliance on integrated concurrent methods in qualitative studies; and (g) preponderance of qualitative‐to‐quantitative versus a qualitative‐to‐quantitative‐to‐qualitative verbal reporting paradigms across studies. Based on these findings, we make several recommendations to be considered when verbal reports are used to study language learners’ reading processes.

Effects of thinking aloud on cognitive effort in translation

“…As translation involves reading and writing, related studies in these two fields merit our attention. Smith et al (2019) provided a methodological review of 76 original empirical studies published between 2000 and 2015 that used verbal reports (including TAPs) to investigate the reading processes of language learners; six of these studies discussed the reactivity of verbal reports. Leow and Morgan-Short (2004) and Bowles and Leow (2005) found that verbalization had a minimal effect on text comprehension and written production and did not compromise the validity of the study.…”

The Effect of Lexical Inference Strategy Instruction on Saudi EFL learners’ Reading Comprehension

“…It was used to discover the lexical inferencing strategies that EFL learners used. Think aloud protocol was one of the most widely used tools in lexical inferencing strategy research by many researchers in a second or foreign language (Smith, Kim, Vorobel, and King, 2019;Nassaji, 2006;Cohen & Upton, 2007). The main purpose for using the technique of Think-aloud protocols is to get a clearer picture of what EFL learners are doing and thinking while reading an English text, specifying the knowledge sources they used to guess the meaning of unknown words.…”