Resource-Allocation Strategies: A Verbal Protocol Analysis

An implementation of protocol analysis and the silent dog method in the area of behavioral safety

Recent research has demonstrated that conducting safety observations increases the safety performance of the observer. The purpose of this study was to help determine whether observers make self-verbalizations regarding their own safety performance and whether these reports are functionally related to safety performance. In order to answer these questions two experiments were conducted using both protocol analysis and the silent dog method. The objective of Experiment 1 was (a) to determine whether safety performance with continuous, concurrent talk-aloud procedures is functionally equivalent to safety performance without talk-aloud reports, and (b) to determine whether that safety performance is altered when participants are presented with a distracter task. The goal of Experiment 2 was to determine whether the safety-related verbalizations made by Experiment 1 participants were task-relevant and functionally related to safety performance. The results from both Experiments 1 and 2 provide support for the existence of a functional relationship between safety-related verbalizations and increases in safety performance.

SSL: a theory of how people learn to select strategies

The assumption that people possess a repertoire of strategies to solve the inference problems they face has been raised repeatedly. However, a computational model specifying how people select strategies from their repertoire is still lacking. The proposed strategy selection learning (SSL) theory predicts a strategy selection process on the basis of reinforcement learning. The theory assumes that individuals develop subjective expectations for the strategies they have and select strategies proportional to their expectations, which are then updated on the basis of subsequent experience. The learning assumption was supported in 4 experimental studies. Participants substantially improved their inferences through feedback. In all 4 studies, the best-performing strategy from the participants' repertoires most accurately predicted the inferences after sufficient learning opportunities. When testing SSL against 3 models representing extensions of SSL and against an exemplar model assuming a memory-based inference process, the authors found that SSL predicted the inferences most accurately.

Self-Regulation in Error Management Training: Emotion Control and Metacognition as Mediators of Performance Effects

In error management training, participants are explicitly encouraged to make errors and learn from them. Error management training has frequently been shown to lead to better performance than conventional trainings that adopt an error avoidant approach. The present study investigated self-regulatory processes mediating this effect. Fifty-five volunteer students learned a computer program under 1 of 3 conditions: error avoidant training, error management training, or error management training supplemented with a metacognitive module. As predicted, both forms of error management training led to better transfer performance than did error avoidant training (d = 0.75). Mediation hypotheses were fully supported: Emotion control and metacognitive activity (from verbal protocols) mediated performance differences. These findings highlight the potential of promoting self-regulatory processing during training.

Analyzing Goal-Striving Processes and a Test of the Generalizability of Perceptual Control Theory

Theories that articulate dynamic processes are relatively rare, but methods for testing the theories are even rarer. This study illustrates two methods for examining goal-striving processes and a tool for collecting dynamic data. The first method tests a hypothesis regarding what variable the participants are attempting to maintain. The second method involves creating multilevel models used to describe the dynamic data generated by study participants, which can be used to test between- and within-subject manipulations or differences. The tool is a research simulation of a manager's role in scheduling subordinates in a hospital wing. Together these methods and the tool are used to test the generalizability of perceptual control theory in explaining striving for cognitive goals. The results confirm the viability of a control theory accounting of goal striving and highlight the potential of the methods and the research tool in future research. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.