{{About|phsychology|the computer networking concept|stateful packet inspection}} '''Protocol analysis''' is a psychological research method that elicits verbal reports from research participants. Protocol analysis is used to study thinking in cognitive psychology (Crutcher, 1994), cognitive science (Simon & Kaplan, 1989), and behavior analysis (Austin & Delaney, 1998). It has found further application in the design of surveys and interviews (Sudman, Bradburn & Schwarz, 1996), usability testing (Henderson, Smith, Podd, & Varela-Alvarez, 1995), educational psychology (Pressley & Afflerbach 1995; Renkl, 1997) and design research (Gero & McNeill 1998). With the introduction of video- and audio-based surveys, the scale and scope of verbal report collection is increased dramatically compared to in-person verbal report recording (Byrd, Joseph, Gongora, & Sirota 2023).
==See also== * Content analysis * Partial concurrent thinking aloud * Think aloud protocol
==References== * Austin, J., & Delaney, P. F. (1998). Protocol analysis as a tool for behavior analysis. ''Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 15'', 41–56. * Crutcher, R. J. (1994). Telling what we know: The use of verbal report methodologies in psychological research. ''Psychological Science, 5'', 241–244. * Ericsson, K. A., & Crutcher, R. J. (1991). Introspection and verbal reports on cognitive processes - two approaches to the study of thought processes: A response to Howe. ''New Ideas in Psychology, 9,'' 57–71. * Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1993). ''Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data''. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. * Gero, J. S. & McNeill, T (1998) An approach to the analysis of design protocols, Design Studies 19(1): 21-61. * Pressley, M., & Afflerbach, P. (1995). ''Verbal protocols of reading: The nature of constructively responsive reading''. Hillsdale, NJ, USA: Erlbaum. * Renkl, A. (1997). Learning from worked-out examples: A study on individual differences. ''Cognitive Science, 21'', 1–29. * Sudman, S., Bradburn, N. M., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.)(1996). ''Thinking about answers: The application of cognitive processes to survey methodology.'' San Francisco, CA, USA: Jossey-Bass. * Byrd, Nick; Joseph, Brianna; Gongora, Gabriela; Sirota, Miroslav (2023). "Tell Us What You Really Think: A Think Aloud Protocol Analysis of the Verbal Cognitive Reflection Test". ''Journal of Intelligence''. 11 (4). https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11040076.
==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20160828160340/https://psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.proto.thnk.html protocol analysis] * [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cprose/TagHelper.html]: A tool for facilitating verbal protocol analysis in English, German, Spanish, or Chinese.
Category:Psychological methodology Category:Cognitive science