Think-Aloud, Thought-Listing, and Video-Mediated Recall Procedures in the Assessment of ...

20 Pages·2014·0.11 MB·English

by  Ashley Shawgo

CognitiveTherapyandResearch,Vol.24,No.4,2000,pp.399–418
Think-Aloud, Thought-Listing, and Video-Mediated
Recall Procedures in the Assessment of Children’s
Self-Talk
Jackie Lodge,1 Gail Tripp,1,2 and Diana Kim Harte1
Two studies examined the extent to which different cognitive assessment procedures
yieldsimilardatainpre-adolescentchildren.InStudy1,situationallyanxiouschildren
reported their self-talk via think-aloud and verbal thought-listing procedures (N !
88).Halfofthechildrenreportedtheirself-talkusingboththink-aloudandthought-
listing while the remainder engaged in thought-listing only. Prior participation in
think-aloud did not influence the self-talk subsequently reported by children during
verbalthought-listing.Comparedwiththought-listing,moreproblem-solving(analyti-
cal) self-talk and less valenced self-talk was reported during think-aloud. In Study
2, 41 children reported their self-talk via both verbal thought-listing and video-
mediated recall (own and other’s perspective) procedures. Video-mediated recall
generated self-talk of a similar valence to that obtained by thought-listing. More
self-talk was generated when the children viewed their own perspective videotape
comparedwithobserverperspectivevideotapeandthought-listing.Whilepre-adoles-
cent children were able to respond to all three cognitive assessment methods, the
self-talk produced was not identical. In choosing a cognitive assessment method,
researchers and clinicians should be guided by the purpose of the assessment and
the setting in which it occurs.
KEYWORDS:children;self-talk;think-aloud;thought-listing;video-mediatedrecall.
Overthelast20years,interestintheroleofcognitionsinadultpsychopathology
has increased dramatically. This has resulted in the development of a number of
procedures for assessing cognitions. These procedures differ on four dimensions:
structure,endorsementversusfreereport;timing,concurrentversusretrospective;
responsemode,writtenversusverbal;andthenatureofthestimulus,invivositua-
tion, viewed on videotape, or imagined (Glass, 1993). Glass and Merluzzi (1981)
classify the available cognitive assessment procedures into six broad categories:
1UniversityofOtago,Dunedin,NewZealand.
2Correspondence should be sent to Dr. Gail Tripp, Department of Psychology, University of Otago,
P.O.Box56,Dunedin,NewZealand.E-mail:[email protected]
399
0147-5916/00/0800-0399$18.00/02000PlenumPublishingCorporation
400 Lodge,Tripp,andHarte
concurrentprocedures,recallprocedures,promptedrecallprocedures,recognition/
endorsementapproaches,projectivemethods,andnaturalisticapproaches.Recent
interest in the importance of cognitive factors in child psychopathology has lead
tothese proceduresbeing used,with fewmodifications,to assessthe cognitionsof
children. It is unclear, however, which of these techniques is most suitable for use
withchildren,andwhetherchildrenreportdifferentpatternsofself-talkinresponse
to the different procedures.
The present paper describes two studies that examined the extent to which
different cognitive assessment procedures yield comparable self-talk data in pre-
adolescentchildren.Study1comparedtheself-talkgeneratedbyconcurrent(think-
aloud) and recall (verbal thought-listing) procedures in a sample of 9- to 10-year-
oldschoolchildrenunderconditionsofmildanxiety.Thestudyalsobrieflyexamined
therelationshipbetweenself-talktypeandanxiety.Study2comparedtheself-talk
generated by recall (verbal thought-listing) and prompted recall (video-mediated
recall) procedures in a sample of 9- to 11-year-old school children.
Think-aloud and thought-listing techniques, including video-mediated recall,
wereselectedforstudybecause(1)theycomecloserthanothercognitiveassessment
methodstomeetingMeichenbaumandCameron’s(1981)guidelinesforthecollec-
tionofvalidcognitiveself-reportdata,(2)lessisknownaboutthevalidityofthese
production methods with children than endorsement procedures, and (3) in the
caseofthink-aloudandthought-listing,bothtechniqueshavebeencomparedwith
endorsement procedures, but to date have not been compared with one another
(Houston,Fox,&Forbes,1984;Kendall&Chansky,1991;Prins&Hanewald,1997).
STUDY 1
Think-aloudisaconcurrenttechniqueinwhichanindividualisaskedtoverbal-
ize his or her self-talk aloud while simultaneously performing a pre-determined
task(Arnkoff&Glass,1989;Genest&Turk,1981;Martzke,Andersen,&Cacioppo,
1987).Thought-listingisarecalltechniquethatrequiresanindividualtoretrospec-
tivelyprovide(Kendall&Chansky,1991;Prins,1985,1986)verbalor,moreusually,
writtenreportsoftheself-talkexperiencedduringaspecifictimeperiod(Blackwell,
Galassi,Galassi,&Watson,1985;Halford&Sanders,1988;Sanders&Dadds,1992).
Think-aloudhastheadvantageofreducingpotentialmemoryand/orreportingbias
because the time between experiencing and reporting a self-statement is minimal
(Blackwell et al., 1985). Furthermore, it typically yields a large sample of self-talk
(Merluzzi & Boltwood, 1989). Thought-listing, on the other hand, is less likely to
interfere with task performance (Blackwell et al., 1985).
We are aware of only one published study that has directly compared think-
aloud and thought-listing procedures and this was with adults (Blackwell et al.,
1985).Think-aloudgeneratedapproximatelytwiceasmanyself-statementsaswrit-
tenthought-listing.Whenboththefrequencyandproportionofself-talktypewere
considered, think-aloud was found to produce significantly more attention-control
andproblem-solvingself-statementsthanthought-listing.Althoughthink-aloudand
thought-listing procedures have not been directly compared with children, a small
AssessmentofChildren’sSelf-Talk 401
number of studies have shown that children can respond to these procedures,
producing codeable self-talk (Fox, Houston, & Pittner, 1983; Houston et al, 1984;
Kendall & Chansky, 1991; Prins, 1985, 1986).
In the present study, think-aloud and verbal thought-listing procedures were
used to elicit the self-talk of pre-adolescent children placed under conditions of
mild anxiety. Verbal thought-listing was used to eliminate the risk that writing
limitations would reduce or distort the children’s responses. Data were collected
under conditions of mild anxiety to facilitate examination of the relationship be-
tweenanxietyandself-talktype.Thespecificaimsofthestudywereto(1)compare
the self-talk generated by children using think-aloud and verbal thought-listing
procedures, (2) explore whether prior engagement in think-aloud influences the
self-talkchildrensubsequentlyreportduringthought-listing,and(3)investigatethe
relationships between self-talk type and anxiety in children.
Basedonpreviousresearchusingthink-aloud orverbalthought-listingproce-
dureswithchildren,itwasassumedthatthemajorityofchildrenwouldreportself-
talk (Fox et al., 1983; Houston et al., 1984; Kendall & Chansky, 1991; Prins, 1985,
1986).Previousresearchwithadults(Blackwelletal.,1985)andourownpilotwork
withchildrensuggestedthatthechildrenwouldreportmoreself-talkduringthink-
aloudthanverbalthought-listing.AlthoughBlackwelletal.(1985)foundthatadults
reported more ‘‘problem-solving’’ (analytical) self-statements under think-aloud
than thought-listing, this finding was not supported by our preliminary results
(Lodge,Harte,&Tripp,1998).Nospecificpredictionsweremadeaboutthecompa-
rability of self-talk types produced under think-aloud and thought-listing proce-
dures. Because there is currently no research examining the effect of think-aloud
on children’s subsequent verbal thought-listing, no hypotheses were formulated
regarding this issue.
Thelimitedresearchontherelationshipbetweenanxietyandself-talktypein
childrensuggestedthatnegativeself-talkwouldbepositivelycorrelatedwithanxiety
(Prins, 1985, 1986; Prins, Groot, & Hanewald, 1994; Zatz & Chassin, 1983, 1985).
Method
Participants
The participants were 88 children (46 females and 42 males) aged between 8
years 8 months and 10 years 9 months (M ! 9 years 8 months). Children 8 years
andolderwereincludedinthestudybecausereportsintheliterature,andourown
research, suggest that children younger than this cannot reliably report their self-
talk.Thechildrenwererecruitedfromfoursuburbanprimaryschools.Oneschool
served a low socioeconomic area, two serviced mid socioeconomic areas, and the
fourth school serviced a high socioeconomic area. Most (83%) of the participating
children were white.
Letters of invitation explaining the study were distributed to the parents of
childreninclassesequivalenttothirdandfourthgradeatthefourschools.Parents
who were willing to allow their child to participate in the study returned a signed
consentformtotheresearchers.Ninety(45.5%)ofthe198consentformsdistributed
402 Lodge,Tripp,andHarte
were returned. Participation rates for the four schools ranged from 38.8% (mid
socioeconomic area) to 68.2% (high socioeconomic area). Parents who did not
return consent forms were not followed up.
Materials
State-TraitAnxietyInventoryforChildren(STAIC). Thechildren’sstate-and
trait-anxietywereassessedwiththeSTAIC(Spielberger,1973).TheSTAICcontains
two subscales—a 20-item State scale that assesses the child’s anxiety at the time
theinventoryiscompleted,anda20-itemTraitscaledesignedtomeasurethechild’s
generalized feelings of anxiety. The STAIC was designed for use with fourth-,
fifth-, and sixth-grade children. Reliability and validity data are available for this
measure(Kendall&Ronan,1990;Spielberger,1973).TheSTAICwasadministered
verballybecausepreviousresearchindicatesNewZealandchildrenmayhavediffi-
culty with some of the vocabulary used in the scale (Tripp & Lodge, 1993).
Math Problems.3 Five math problems, to be completed within 5 minutes,
served as the mildly anxiety-provoking task for the participating children. These
mathproblemsweretakenfromthebook‘‘ShortMaths2’’(Lockyer,1990).They
were selected in consultation with an experienced primary school principal, who
considered them to be age appropriate. Given sufficient time, most 8- to 10-year-
old children should be able to complete the math problems.
Procedure
Childrenwithparentalpermissiontoparticipateinthestudywereapproached
at school by J.L., who described the study and invited them to take part. All of
the children approached consented to participate. The children were individually
interviewedtwiceovera2-weekperiod(1weekbetweensessions).Interviewswere
conducted in a quiet room at the children’s schools.
Duringthefirstsession,thechildrenwereverballyadministeredthetraitscale
of the STAIC. After this session, pairs of children were matched for age, sex, and
STAIC-trait anxiety percentile score. Children within the matched pair were then
randomly assigned to one of two groups: think-aloud followed by verbal thought-
listing (Group 1) or verbal thought-listing only (Group 2). Both groups included
23girlsand21boys.Thegroupsdidnotdiffersignificantlyontraitanxietypercentile
scores (Group 1, M ! 39, SD ! 26; Group 2, M ! 39, SD ! 26) or age (Group
1, M ! 115.8 months, SD ! 6.9; Group 2, M ! 116.7 months, SD ! 5.9).
At the beginning of the second session, the children were informed that they
would be given 5 minutes in which to complete a series of math problems. They
were told that the researcher was interested in how many of the problems they
could get right within this time and that, although they might not get all of the
problemsfinished,theyshouldtrytheirbesttoworkthemout.Afterashortpractice
trial,thechildreninGroup1weregiven2minutestoreportaloudeverythingthat
theywerethinkingandsayingtothemselves(think-aloud).Childrenwhoremained
silentfor10secondsweregivenamaximumoftwostandardprompts:‘‘Remember
3Copiesofthefivemathproblemsareavailablefromthesecondauthor.
AssessmentofChildren’sSelf-Talk 403
tosayoutloudallthethingsthatcomeintoyourhead’’and‘‘Whatareyouthinking
and saying to yourself right now?’’ Children in both groups were then verbally
administered the STAIC-state scale.
Followingthis,allchildrenweregiventhemathproblemstoworkon.Children
in Group 1 were asked to say out loud everything they were thinking and saying
tothemselveswhiletheyworkedontheproblems(think-aloud).Asbefore,children
who remained silent for 10 seconds were prompted (maximum of two standard
prompts). The researcher also responded briefly to occasional questions raised by
somechildreninbothgroups.Nootherverbalcontactwasmadewiththechildren
while they worked on the math problems. The researcher was positioned at the
back ofthe room, withinhearing distance butoutside the children’sline of vision,
during this 5-minute period. Self-talk generated prior to and during the maths
problems was combined for analysis.
After5minutes,thechildrenwereaskedtostopworkingontheproblemsand
were interviewed about what they were thinking prior to and while participating
in the task (verbal thought-listing). The children were requested to:
1. ‘‘Tell me everything you thinking and saying to yourself when I first told
you about the math problems?’’
2. ‘‘Tell me everything you thinking and saying to yourself while you were
working on the math problems?’’
Standardpromptsweregivenifchildrenfailedtorespondwithin10seconds(‘‘Were
youthinkingorsayinganythingtoyourself?’’Ifanaffirmativeresponsewasgiven
thechildwasasked‘‘whatwereyouthinkingorsayingtoyourself?’’)orresponded
that they were thinking about the situation rather than reporting their actual self-
talk (‘‘What were the thoughts that went through your mind?’’). The children
were asked to indicate when they had finished responding to each thought-listing
‘‘question’’ by raising a hand. The children’s self-talk during think aloud and/or
thought-listing was audiotaped and later transcribed verbatim.
Results
Parametric and nonparametric tests were used to analyze the data. Nonpara-
metricprocedureswereusedwheredatawerecategoricalinnatureornon-normally
distributed.Unlessotherwisestated,criticalalphawassetat.05andanalyseswere
two-tailed.
Coding of Dependent Variables
The transcripts of the children’s self-talk were unitized by two trained raters
working independently. A unit was defined as representing one main idea, rather
than meaningless words. Sentence structure and content were used to help define
units. Copies of the unitizing manual are available from the second author. One
rater unitized all of the transcripts, while the second rater unitized self-statements
fromrandomlyselectedpageswithinthetranscripts(45%ofthetranscribedmate-
rial).Throughoutunitizing,theratershadaccesstotheaudiotapesofthechildren’s
self-talk.
404 Lodge,Tripp,andHarte
Agreementovertheexistenceofa‘‘unit’’wasdefinedasthetworatersmarking
‘‘unit boundaries’’ in exactly the same location on the transcripts. The two raters
agreedon97.1%ofthecommonlyunitisedmaterial(372ofthe383unitsidentified).
Therewere11omissiondisagreements(i.e.,‘‘unitboundaries’’thatonlyoneofthe
tworatersidentified).Disagreementswereresolvedinfavoroftheraterwhounit-
ized all of the transcripts.
Following unitizing, the units of self-talk were coded into six theoretically
meaningful categories: positive, negative, neutral, analytical, directive (sometimes
referred to as coping), and questioning self-talk using a system developed by J.L.
Questions are not usually identified separately but coded according to valence. A
categoryof questioningself-talk wasincluded inlight ofthe frequencywith which
questions appear in the self-talk of anxious adults (Kendall & Ingram, 1987). De-
scriptions of all of the self-talk categories, together with examples, are given in
Table I.
TableI.CognitiveContentCategories:DefinitionsandExamples
Cognitive
category Definitions Examples
Positivea Self-statement(s)likelytofacilitate ‘‘Icandoit.’’
controloffear/anxietyand/orachiev- ‘‘Ienjoymath.’’
ingafavorableoutcomeon(orcom- ‘‘Thisisachallenge.’’
pletionof)thetask.Excludesques-
tions(codedasQuestioning)and
self-instructions(codedasDi-
rective).
Negativea Self-statementslikelytohindercontrol ‘‘Thislookshard.’’
offearand/orhinderafavorable ‘‘Imustbestupid.’’
outcomeon(orcompletionof)the ‘‘I’mgettingthemallwrong.’’
task.Excludesquestions(codedas
Questioning).
Neutrala Self-statementsthathavenoclearin- ‘‘I’mthinkingaboutmybestfriend.’’
fluenceonthetaskathandandcan- ‘‘Therearefivequestions.’’
notbeclearlycategorizedelse- ‘‘Thisislikebeingintheclassroom.’’
where.
Analytical On-taskverbalizationsinwhichthe ‘‘Theansweris10.’’
subjectisengaginginproblem-solv- ‘‘ABCDE.’’
ingstrategiestocompletethetask. ‘‘I’llworkthisoutbyaddingupthe
numbers.’’
Directivea,b Self-statementsdirectingthoughtorbe- ‘‘Workatmyownpace.’’
havior,expressedintheformofa ‘‘Staycalm.’’
self-instruction.Unlikelytointerfere ‘‘Imustkeepconcentrating.’’
withachievingafavorableoutcome
onthetask,taskcompletion,orcon-
trollingfear/anxiety.
Questioning Self-statementsexpressedintheform ‘‘WhatifIcan’tfinishtheseintime?’’
ofaquestion.Excludesreadingques- ‘‘WillIgetitdone?’’
tionsaloudfromthemathtaskor ‘‘WonderhowI’mdoing?’’
askingquestionsinordertosolvea
mathproblem(e.g.,‘‘Whatcomes
after10?’’)(bothcodedasAna-
lytical).
AdaptedfromLodgeetal.,1998.
aDefinitionsbasedonKendall&Chansky(1991).
b‘‘Directive’’self-talkismorecommonlyreferredtoas‘‘coping’’self-talkintheliterature.
AssessmentofChildren’sSelf-Talk 405
A further two raters, blind to the experimental hypotheses, independently
codedtheunitsofself-talk.Eachraterreceivedapproximately10hoursoftraining
intheuseofthecodingsystemandbegancodingtheunitisedtranscriptsoncethey
reachedmorethan95%agreementwithJ.L.Oneratercategorizedallunitsonthe
transcripts,whiletheothercategorised388(47.5%)ofthe817unitsfromrandomly
selectedpageswithinthetranscripts.Approximately7%oftheunitswerenotcoded
(e.g., acknowledgements of prompts, descriptions of behavior, questions directed
at the interviewer).
Inter-rateragreementwascalculatedusingCohen’sKappa(Bakeman&Gott-
man,1986;Cohen,1960).Kappasfortheindividualself-talkcategoriesrangedfrom
0.87to1.00,withanoverallkappaof0.96.Disagreementsincodingwereresolved
in favor of the rater who coded all of the transcribed units.
Anxiety Levels
The participants’ raw scores on the state- and trait-scales of the STAIC were
converted to percentile scores. Paired t tests were used to compare state and trait
percentilescoreswithineachgroup.Childreninbothgroupsreportedexperiencing
significantlymoreanxietyjustpriortocompletingthemathproblemsthaningeneral
(Group 1: State M ! 53, Trait M ! 39, t[43] ! 2.89, p " .01; Group 2: State M !
55, Trait M ! 39, t[43] ! 4.09, p " .001).
Nature of Self-Talk Reported During Think-Aloud and Thought-Listing
Allofthechildrenreportedself-talkduringthink-aloud(Group1).Onechild
inGroup1andsixchildreninGroup2reportednoself-talkduringthought-listing.
Chi-square analysis showed that the number of children failing to report self-talk
duringthought-listingdidnotdiffersignificantlyacrossthegroups.TableIIpresents
therange,mean,andmodalnumberofself-statementsreportedbyeachgroupfor
each cognitive assessment method.
The median amount of self-talk generated during think-aloud and thought-
listing procedures by the children in Group 1 was compared with a Wilcoxon
matched-pairs signed-ranks test. Significantly more self-talk was reported during
think-aloud (M ! 9.5, SD ! 6.8) than during thought-listing (M ! 4.6, SD ! 2.7)
Z ! #4.91, p " .0001.4 To compare the type of self-talk generated the responses
in each self-talk category were converted to proportions of the total amount pro-
duced.Thiswasdonetocontrolfordifferencesintheamountofself-talkgenerated
acrossmethods.Onlydatafromchildrenwhoactuallyreportedself-talkwerecon-
vertedtoproportions.Itisnotmeaningfultotalkabouttheproportionsofself-talk
typesforchildrenwhoreportednoself-talk.Theseproportiondataarepresentedin
Table III.
The proportion data show a similar pattern to the frequency data. For think-
aloud, analytical self-talk was most commonly reported, followed by negative and
questioning self-talk. For thought-listing, negative and positive self-talk were the
4Thisanalysiswasrepeatedremovingthedatafromthechildwhoreportednoself-talkduringthought-
listing: think aloud M ! 9.6, SD ! 6.8; thought-listing M ! 4.7, SD ! 2.7; Z ! #4.84, p " .0001,
N!43.
406 Lodge,Tripp,andHarte
TableII.FrequencyofSelf-StatementsAssignedtoEachCognitiveCategoryAccordingtoGroupand
CognitiveAssessmentMethod
No.(%)
Numberofself-statementsreported reporting
Cognition cognition
category Mean (S.D.) Median Range type
Group1(TA) N!44 N!44 N!44 N!44
Negative 1.8(2.1) 1.0 0–8 29(65.9%)
Positive 1.5(1.9) 1.0 0–7 25(56.8%)
Analytical 3.4(3.9) 2.5 0–15 30(68.2%)
Questioning 1.6(1.8) 1.0 0–7 27(61.4%)
Neutral 1.0(1.6) 0.0 0–6 18(40.9%)
Directive 0.2(0.5) 0.0 0–2 8(18.2%)
Total 9.5(6.8) 8.0 2–31
Group1(TL)a N!44 N!43 N!43 N!43 N!43
Negative 1.4(1.4) 1.4(1.4) 1.0 0–6 30(69.8%)
Positive 1.2(1.3) 1.3(1.3) 1.0 0–6 32(74.4%)
Analytical 0.7(1.1) 0.7(1.1) 0.0 0–4 17(39.5%)
Questioning 0.8(1.3) 0.8(1.3) 0.0 0–6 15(34.9%)
Neutral 0.4(0.8) 0.4(0.8) 0.0 0–3 12(27.9%)
Directive 0.1(0.2) 0.0(0.2) 0.0 0–2 2(4.7%)
Total 4.6(2.7) 4.7(2.7) 4.0 1–12
Group2(TL)a N!44 N!38 N!38 N!38 N!38
Negative 0.9(1.2) 1.0(1.2) 1.0 0–5 22(57.9%)
Positive 0.8(1.2) 0.9(1.3) 1.0 0–5 20(52.6%)
Analytical 0.7(0.9) 0.8(0.9) 1.0 0–3 21(55.3%)
Questioning 0.5(1.0) 0.6(1.0) 0.0 0–3 10(26.3%)
Neutral 0.2(0.5) 0.2(0.5) 0.0 0–2 6(15.8%)
Directive 0.1(0.3) 0.1(0.3) 0.0 0–1 3(7.9%)
Total 3.2(2.2) 3.7(1.9) 3.5 1–8
TA!think-aloud;TL!verbalthought-listing.
aTLmeansandstandarddeviationsusingtheentiresampleandonlythosechildrenreportingself-talk
arepresented.
mostprevalent,followedbyhighratesofanalyticalself-talkforchildreninGroup
2. Because the majority of the self-talk was assigned to the negative, positive,
analytical,andquestioningcategories,onlythesefourtypesareconsideredfurther.
Theproportionofeachself-talktype(negative,positive,analytical,andques-
tioning) reported during think-aloud and thought-listing was compared with Wil-
coxon matched-pairs signed-ranks tests. Proportions of negative (Z ! #2.59, p "
.01),positive(Z!#3.08,p".005),andanalytical(Z!#3.63,p".0005)self-talk,
but not questioning self-talk, differed significantly across the cognitive assessment
methods. Specifically, higher proportions of negative and positive self-talk were
reportedduringthought-listing,whereasahigherproportionofanalyticalself-talk
was reported during think-aloud.
Considerationofthefrequencydatasuggestthatthedifferencesinthepropor-
tionsofpositiveandnegativeself-talkobservedbetweenthink-aloudandthought-
listing are an artifact of the very high rate of analytical self-talk reported during
think-aloud.The think-aloud/thought-listinganalyseswererepeated usingthefre-
quencydata(N!43).Wilcoxonmatched-pairssigned-ranktestsindicatedthatthe
number of analytical (Z ! #4.37, p " .0001) and questioning (Z ! #2.68, p "
AssessmentofChildren’sSelf-Talk 407
Table III. Proportion of Self-Statements Assigned to Each
CognitiveCategoryAccordingtoGroupandCognitiveAssess-
mentMethod
Proportionofself-statementsreported
Cognition
category Meana(S.D.) Median Range
Group1(TA)
Negative 0.22(0.26) 0.13 0.00–1.00
Positive 0.15(0.19) 0.09 0.00–0.88
Analytical 0.33(0.30) 0.35 0.00–1.00
Questioning 0.21(0.28) 0.13 0.00–1.00
Neutral 0.08(0.12) 0.00 0.00–0.50
Directive 0.01(0.03) 0.00 0.00–0.13
Group1(TL)
Negative 0.34(0.31) 0.29 0.00–1.00
Positive 0.27(0.24) 0.25 0.00–1.00
Analytical 0.13(0.19) 0.00 0.00–0.67
Questioning 0.17(0.27) 0.00 0.00–1.00
Neutral 0.08(0.14) 0.00 0.00–0.50
Directive 0.01(0.05) 0.00 0.00–0.33
Group2(TL)
Negative 0.27(0.30) 0.23 0.00–1.00
Positive 0.24(0.30) 0.17 0.00–1.00
Analytical 0.24(0.28) 0.21 0.00–1.00
Questioning 0.15(0.28) 0.00 0.00–1.00
Neutral 0.07(0.19) 0.00 0.00–1.00
Directive 0.03(0.30) 0.00 0.00–0.33
TA!think-aloud;TL!verbalthought-listing.
aMeans are basedon the number ofchildren reporting self-
talk(Group1/TA!44;Group1/TL!43;Group2/TL!38)
.01)self-statementsreporteddifferedsignificantlyacrossmethods.Moreanalytical
and questioning self-talk were reported during think-aloud than during thought-
listing.Frequenciesofpositiveandnegativeself-talkdidnotdifferacrosscognitive
assessment procedures.
Effect of Think-Aloud on Subsequent Thought-Listing
To determine whether prior participation in think-aloud influenced the self-
talk reported during thought-listing, both the total amount of self-talk and the
proportions of self-talk types (negative, positive, analytical, and questioning) re-
portedduringthought-listingwerecomparedacrossthegroupsusingMann-Whitney
U tests. Children who reported no self-talk were excluded from the analyses of
self-talk type.
Whenonlythosechildrenwhoreportedself-talkwereincludedintheanalysis,
therewasnosignificantgroupdifferenceinthetotalamountofself-talkgenerated
during thought-listing. However, when the analysis was repeated to include all of
the children, the group who had engaged in think-aloud prior to thought-listing
(M ! 4.5, SD ! 2.7) reported significantly more self-statements than those who
engaged in thought-listing only (M ! 3.2, SD ! 2.2) Z ! #2.3, p " .05.
No significant group differences were found for the proportions of self-talk
typesreported,althoughthedifferenceinproportionofanalyticalself-talkreported
408 Lodge,Tripp,andHarte
TableIV.SpearmanRankCorrelationsBetweenAnxiety(STAIC-StateandTraitPercentileScores)
andSelf-TalkType
Think-aloud(N!44) Thought-listing(N!81)
STAIC-trait STAIC-state STAIC-trait STAIC-state
Frequencyofself-talk
Negativea r !#.16ns r ! .15ns r ! .14ns r ! .37**
s s s s
Positive r ! .11ns r !#.08ns r ! .04ns r !#.08ns
s s s s
Questioninga r ! .04ns r !#.18ns r ! .01ns r !#.13ns
s s s s
Analytical r !#.05ns r !#.21ns r ! .03ns r ! .09ns
s s s s
Proportionofself-talk
Negativea r !#.15ns r ! .25* r ! .10ns r ! .35**
s s s s
Positive r ! .06ns r ! .01ns r !#.01ns r !#.13ns
s s s s
Questioninga r !#.03ns r !#.13ns r ! .02ns r !#.12ns
s s s s
Analytical r !#.05ns r !#.25ns r ! .00ns r ! .06ns
s s s s
*p".05.
**p".0005
ns!notsignificant.
aWherethedirectionofarelationshipwaspredicted,one-tailedtestswereused.
approached significance (Z ! #1.95, p ! .052).5,6 Children in Group 2 reported a
higher proportion of analytical self-talk than those in Group 1.
Self-Talk and Anxiety
Spearmanrankcorrelationswereusedtoassessthedegreeoflinearassociation
betweenboththefrequencyandproportionofpositive,negative,questioning,and
analyticalself-talkandthechildren’slevelsofanxiety(TableIV).Separatecorrela-
tionswerecarriedoutforthink-aloudandthought-listing,astheself-talkgenerated
bythesecognitiveassessmentproceduresdiffered.Becausetherewerenosignificant
group differences in the self-talk types reported during thought-listing, these data
werecollapsedacrossthegroups.Alphawassetat.01toprotectagainsttypeIerrors.
For thought-listing, both the proportion (r ! .35, p " .0005, one-tailed) and
s
thefrequency(r !.37,p".0005,one-tailed)ofnegativeself-talkweresignificantly
s
positively correlated with state anxiety levels. For think-aloud, the correlation be-
tween state anxiety and the proportion of negative self-talk (r ! .25, p ! .026,
s
one-tailed)approached,butdidnotreach,statisticalsignificance.Allothercorrela-
tions were nonsignificant.
Discussion
Theresultsofthepresentstudyindicatethattheself-talkreportedbychildren
is influenced by the cognitive assessment method used. Think-aloud and thought-
listing procedures do not produce identical self-talk. Although prior participation
5Theseanalyseswererepeatedtoincludethechildrenwhoreportednoself-talkduringverbalthought-
listing.Mann-WhitneyUtestsshowednosignificantgroupdifferencesintheproportionsofnegative,
positive,analytical,andquestioningself-talkreported.
6Anyteststhatapproachedstatisticalsignificancewerecheckedusingrandomizationtests(Manly,1992).
Resultswereconsistentwiththenon-parametricanalysesreported.