Think-Aloud Interviews: A Tool for Exploring Student Statistical Reasoning

• Published in: Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education Vol. 30; no. 2; pp. 100 - 113
• Main Authors: Reinhart, Alex, Evans, Ciaran, Luby, Amanda, Orellana, Josue, Meyer, Mikaela, Wieczorek, Jerzy, Elliott, Peter, Burckhardt, Philipp, Nugent, Rebecca
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Alexandria Taylor & Francis 04.05.2022; Taylor & Francis Ltd; Taylor & Francis Group
• Subjects: Best Practices; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive Processes; College Freshmen; College Science; Correlation and causation; Data science; Educational Research; Guidelines; Interviews; Introductory Courses; Learning; Mathematical Logic; Mathematics Education; Mathematics Instruction; Misconceptions; Problem Solving; Protocol Analysis; Real time; Research methodology; Research Tools; Researchers; Sampling distributions; Science education; Science Instruction; Statistical Data; Statistical significance; Statistics Education; Students; Teaching; Think-aloud interviews; Thinking Skills
• ISSN: 2693-9169; 2693-9169
• DOI: 10.1080/26939169.2022.2063209

Think-aloud interviews have been a valuable but underused tool in statistics education research. Think-alouds, in which students narrate their reasoning in real time while solving problems, differ in important ways from other types of cognitive interviews and related education research methods. Beyond the uses already found in the statistics literature-mostly validating the wording of statistical concept inventory questions and studying student misconceptions-we suggest other possible use cases for think-alouds and summarize best-practice guidelines for designing think-aloud interview studies. Using examples from our own experiences studying the local student body for our introductory statistics courses, we illustrate how research goals should inform study-design decisions and what kinds of insights think-alouds can provide. We hope that our overview of think-alouds encourages more statistics educators and researchers to begin using this method. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.