Observing documentary reading by verbal protocol

Verifies the applicability to research on indexers' reading strategies of the process observing technique known as Verbal Protocol or Thinking Aloud. This interpretative-qualitative data collecting technique allows the observation of different kinds of process during the progress of different kinds of tasks. Presents a theoretical investigation into reading and into formal methodological procedures to observe reading processes. Describes details of the methodological procedures adopted in five case studies with analysis of samples of data. The project adopted three kinds of parameters for data analysis: theoretical, normative, empirical (derived from observations made in the first case study). The results are compared, and important conclusions regarding documentary reading are drawn.

Evaluation of indexed language used in collective catalogues of university libraries: a socio-cognitive study using verbal protocol

The use of indexing language in university libraries collective catalogs and the socio-cognitive context of indexing and users were evaluated. The methodology consisted of a diagnostic study elaboration of the functioning and treatment procedures of the indexing information from nine libraries of the UNESP Network, representing the Civil Engineering, Pedagogy and Dentistry areas from a data collection using the Verbal Protocol introspective technique in the Individual and Group forms. The study conducted a reflection upon the statements issued by the seventy-two participating individuals whose the results revealed unsatisfactory results about the use of the Subject Headings List of the BIBLIODATA Network, indexing language utilizing by the UNESP Libraries Network, Brazil, in the representation and in the information retrieval process in the ATHENA catalog, about the sequent aspects of the language: lack of specialized vocabulary as well as updated; lack of remissives and of specific headings, and others. We have concluded that the adequate use of indexing languages of specialized scientific areas becomes by means of evaluation as to updating, specificity and compatibility in order to meet the needs of indexing and information retrieval.

On the Use of Regression and Verbal Protocol Analysis in Modeling Analysts’ Behavior in an Unstructured Task Environment: A Methodological Note

This paper discusses areas for future research opportunities by addressing accounting issues faced by management accountants practicing in hospitality organizations. Specifically, the article focuses on the use of the uniform system of accounts by operating properties, the usefulness of allocating support costs to operated departments, extending our understanding of operating costs and performance measurement systems and the certification of practicing accountants.

O uso de linguagem documentária em catálogos coletivos de bibliotecas universitárias: um estudo de avaliação sociocognitiva com protocolo verbal

Avaliou-se o uso de linguagem documentária alfabética de catálogos coletivos, na perspectiva das bibliotecas universitárias e no contexto sociocognitivo dos indexadores e dos usuários. Concluiu-se que o uso adequado de linguagens documentárias de áreas científicas especializadas faz-se por meio da avaliação quanto à atualização, especificidade e compatibilidade para atender às necessidades de indexação e recuperação da informação.

A importância da observação da estrutura textual durante a catalogação de assunto de livros científicos em bibliotecas universitárias: uma análise realizada a partir da técnica de Protocolo Verbal

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Avaliação de linguagem documentária em fonoaudiologia na perspectiva do usuário: estudo de observação da recuperação da informação com protocolo verbal

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

O ensino do Modelo de Leitura Documentária como recurso pedagógico para indexação na perspectiva entre profissional experiente e aprendiz: a aplicação do Protocolo Verbal Interativo na avaliação do uso e da ação de aprendizagem

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Avaliação do uso de linguagem documentária em catálogos coletivos de bibliotecas universitárias: um estudo sociocognitivo com protocolo verbal

Pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação - FFC

A representação documentária no processo de indexação com o modelo de leitura documentária para textos científicos e livros: uma abordagem cognitiva com protocolo verbal

The documentary representation in indexing is carried out, at first, in the analysis of subjects to establish the intrinsic and extrinsic aboutness, and then, in the translation stage using the documentary language. The representation by concepts for determining the intrinsic aboutness during the subject analysis is shown by the Documentary Reading Model for indexing of scientific texts and books, Therefore, it was carried out a search on documentary reading for cataloguers for indexing books in academic libraries. A research on catalogers’ documentary reading for indexing books was carried out in nine university libraries. The application of the introspective technique of Individual Verbal Protocol with the catalogers allowed an analysis of subject cataloguing procedures, which made it possible to verify the textual structure parts of a book, as well as to locate the terms identified and selected. The results led to an adaptation of the Documentary Reading Model to book indexing.

Política de indexação na catalogação de assunto em bibliotecas universitárias: a visão sociocognitiva da atuação profissional com protocolo verbal

The indexing policy must be represented by means of a philosophy that reflects the system's aims. One of the aspects concerning the indexing policy is relating to the data retrospective conversion. The general aim is to discuss and make a profound study on indexing policy guidelines and to analyze the elements to set up an indexing policy, that should direct the indexing procedures carried out in university libraries using the methodology of verbal protocol. The results demonstrate that the indexing policy serves as a support for the knowledge organization in the catalog, acting as a guide for the librarian when determining the subjects of the documents described in the records. It is concluded that the indexing only will be carried out in the university library during the documentary information treatment by means of a well determined policy.

A classificação bibliográfica no contexto do tratamento temático da informação: um estudo com o protocolo verbal individual em bibliotecas do Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia (IF´s)

The discussions that underpin the process of bibliographic classification in documentaries systems should be designed with scientific basis and theoretical, rather than only be based on professional practice. The theoretical approaches, however, attention should also be involved in professional practice. From this, the present study seeks to demonstrate through the perception of catalogers professional, the importance of reflections on the activity of Thematic Treatment of Information, especially the bibliographic classification in order to engender the strengthening of the area and improvements in product quality and services resulting from libraries. In this context, was carried out a study in the libraries of two Federal Institutes of Education, Science and Technology (IF’s) located in two different states of southeastern Brazil. Technique was employed introspective data collection Verbal Protocol in Individual mode, having qualitative character.

On Consumer Decision Strategies: New Approaches for Studying and Aiding Preferential Choices

This dissertation focuses on the strategies consumers use when making purchase decisions. It is organized in two main parts, one centering on descriptive and the other on applied decision making research. In the first part, a new process tracing tool called InterActive Process Tracing (IAPT) is pre- sented, which I developed to investigate the nature of consumers' decision strategies. This tool is a combination of several process tracing techniques, namely Active Information Search, Mouselab, and retrospective verbal protocol. To validate IAPT, two experiments on mobile phone purchase de- cisions were conducted where participants first repeatedly chose a mobile phone and then were asked to formalize their decision strategy so that it could be used to make choices for them. The choices made by the identified strategies correctly predicted the observed choices in 73% (Experiment 1) and 67% (Experiment 2) of the cases. Moreover, in Experiment 2, Mouselab and eye tracking were directly compared with respect to their impact on information search and strategy description. Only minor differences were found between these two methods. I conclude that IAPT is a useful research tool to identify choice strategies, and that using eye tracking technology did not increase its validity beyond that gained with Mouselab. In the second part, a prototype of a decision aid is introduced that was developed building in particular on the knowledge about consumers' decision strategies gained in Part I. This decision aid, which is called the InterActive Choice Aid (IACA), systematically assists consumers in their purchase decisions. To evaluate the prototype regarding its perceived utility, an experiment was conducted where IACA was compared to two other prototypes that were based on real-world consumer decision aids. All three prototypes differed in the number and type of tools they provided to facilitate the process of choosing, ranging from low (Amazon) to medium (Sunrise/dpreview) to high functionality (IACA). Overall, participants slightly preferred the prototype of medium functionality and this prototype was also rated best on the dimensions of understandability and ease of use. IACA was rated best regarding the two dimensions of ease of elimination and ease of comparison of alternatives. Moreover, participants choices were more in line with the normatively oriented weighted additive strategy when they used IACA than when they used the medium functionality prototype. The low functionality prototype was the least preferred overall. It is concluded that consumers can and will benefit from highly functional decision aids like IACA, but only when these systems are easy to understand and to use.

Skill Development in Music Reading. The Eye-Movement Approach

This dissertation examined skill development in music reading by focusing on the visual processing of music notation in different music-reading tasks. Each of the three experiments of this dissertation addressed one of the three types of music reading: (i) sight-reading, i.e. reading and performing completely unknown music, (ii) rehearsed reading, during which the performer is already familiar with the music being played, and (iii) silent reading with no performance requirements. The use of the eye-tracking methodology allowed the recording of the readers’ eye movements from the time of music reading with extreme precision. Due to the lack of coherence in the smallish amount of prior studies on eye movements in music reading, the dissertation also had a heavy methodological emphasis. The present dissertation thus aimed to promote two major issues: (1) it investigated the eye-movement indicators of skill and skill development in sight-reading, rehearsed reading and silent reading, and (2) developed and tested suitable methods that can be used by future studies on the topic. Experiment I focused on the eye-movement behaviour of adults during their first steps of learning to read music notation. The longitudinal experiment spanned a nine-month long music-training period, during which 49 participants (university students taking part in a compulsory music course) sight-read and performed a series of simple melodies in three measurement sessions. Participants with no musical background were entitled as “novices”, whereas “amateurs” had had musical training prior to the experiment. The main issue of interest was the changes in the novices’ eye movements and performances across the measurements while the amateurs offered a point of reference for the assessment of the novices’ development. The experiment showed that the novices tended to sight-read in a more stepwise fashion than the amateurs, the latter group manifesting more back-and-forth eye movements. The novices’ skill development was reflected by the faster identification of note symbols involved in larger melodic intervals. Across the measurements, the novices also began to show sensitivity to the melodies’ metrical structure, which the amateurs demonstrated from the very beginning. The stimulus melodies consisted of quarter notes, making the effects of meter and larger melodic intervals distinguishable from effects caused by, say, different rhythmic patterns. Experiment II explored the eye movements of 40 experienced musicians (music education students and music performance students) during temporally controlled rehearsed reading. This cross-sectional experiment focused on the eye-movement effects of one-bar-long melodic alterations placed within a familiar melody. The synchronizing of the performance and eye-movement recordings enabled the investigation of the eye-hand span, i.e., the temporal gap between a performed note and the point of gaze. The eye-hand span was typically found to remain around one second. Music performance students demonstrated increased professing efficiency by their shorter average fixation durations as well as in the two examined eye-hand span measures: these participants used larger eye-hand spans more frequently and inspected more of the musical score during the performance of one metrical beat than students of music education. Although all participants produced performances almost indistinguishable in terms of their auditory characteristics, the altered bars indeed affected the reading of the score: the general effects of expertise in terms of the two eye- hand span measures, demonstrated by the music performance students, disappeared in the face of the melodic alterations. Experiment III was a longitudinal experiment designed to examine the differences between adult novice and amateur musicians’ silent reading of music notation, as well as the changes the 49 participants manifested during a nine-month long music course. From a methodological perspective, an opening to research on eye movements in music reading was the inclusion of a verbal protocol in the research design: after viewing the musical image, the readers were asked to describe what they had seen. A two-way categorization for verbal descriptions was developed in order to assess the quality of extracted musical information. More extensive musical background was related to shorter average fixation duration, more linear scanning of the musical image, and more sophisticated verbal descriptions of the music in question. No apparent effects of skill development were observed for the novice music readers alone, but all participants improved their verbal descriptions towards the last measurement. Apart from the background-related differences between groups of participants, combining verbal and eye-movement data in a cluster analysis identified three styles of silent reading. The finding demonstrated individual differences in how the freely defined silent-reading task was approached. This dissertation is among the first presentations of a series of experiments systematically addressing the visual processing of music notation in various types of music-reading tasks and focusing especially on the eye-movement indicators of developing music-reading skill. Overall, the experiments demonstrate that the music-reading processes are affected not only by “top-down” factors, such as musical background, but also by the “bottom-up” effects of specific features of music notation, such as pitch heights, metrical division, rhythmic patterns and unexpected melodic events. From a methodological perspective, the experiments emphasize the importance of systematic stimulus design, temporal control during performance tasks, and the development of complementary methods, for easing the interpretation of the eye-movement data. To conclude, this dissertation suggests that advances in comprehending the cognitive aspects of music reading, the nature of expertise in this musical task, and the development of educational tools can be attained through the systematic application of the eye-tracking methodology also in this specific domain.

Teoria e prática em catalogação de assunto: a sistematicidade do processo em contexto de bibliotecas universitárias pela perspectiva profissional

A natureza subjetiva da catalogação de assunto imprime certas peculiaridades nas ações dos profissionais que realizam a atividade em domínios específicos. Sendo assim, mostra-se necessária à realização de estudos que cerquem as ações dos catalogadores de assunto, ancoradas na realidade do contexto de bibliotecas universitárias, para a obtenção dos fatores influentes do saber e do fazer profissional. Portanto, analisa-se o conhecimento profissional acerca da sistematicidade do processo da catalogação de assunto em perspectiva sociocognitiva. Para tanto, aplica-se a técnica de Protocolo Verbal em Grupo com três catalogadores de assunto de distintas bibliotecas universitárias do estado de São Paulo, a fim de conhecer a realidade do processo da catalogação de assunto pela perspectiva profissional. Os resultados apontam a necessidade de instrumentos metodológicos que propiciem sustentabilidade prática à catalogação de assunto, em contexto de bibliotecas universitárias.

O ensino de procedimentos de política de indexação na perspectiva do conhecimento organizacional: uma proposta de programa para a educação à distância do bibliotecário

A política de indexação deve ser constituída de estratégias que permitam o alcance dos objetivos de recuperação do sistema de informação. O indexador tem a função primordial de compreender o documento ao realizar uma análise conceitual que represente adequadamente seu conteúdo. Utilizando a leitura como evento social/protocolo verbal em grupo, nosso objetivo é contribuir com a literatura sobre política de indexação e apresentar propostas de ensino de política de indexação direcionadas a alunos de graduação e pós-graduação, além de uma experiência de educação à distância com vistas à formação do bibliotecário em serviço. Os resultados obtidos demonstraram que a metodologia pode ser utilizada por sistemas de informação para que se tenha acesso ao conhecimento do indexador. Conclui que o indexador deve ser o alvo de investimento dos sistemas de informação e sugere aos sistemas de informação que a experiência do indexador também seja utilizada como parâmetro para política de indexação.