Levels of processing: In all of the protocols except thefirst one, participants
reached the level of meaning construction, which is evidenced by extracts from
protocols such as“I think the meaning here should be...”,“I see‘differ’here as a
key verb”,“I knowfit the new to the old is accommodation”, etc. They all try to
figure out the exact meaning of the content to befilled in the gap.
Differences: Thefirst participant reported:“I wrote here a word, that is con-
clusion, after evaluate, so, I think it might be evaluate and conclude”, which clearly
shows the adjacency of words“evaluate and conclusion”in her notes and in order
to contextualize her notes, she changed the noun“conclusion”into its verb form
“conclude”. However, there is no clear sign of meaning building in thefirst pro-
tocol. The second participant here interpreted the meaning of the word to befilled in
the gap in her own way, attempting to build a logical relation between the new and
old information, or as is put by her,“a contrast between what they heard before and
Table 6.18 (continued)
words, when I see“differ”here as a key verb, I think
this word could be the possible answer
R: What did you write for thefifth point?
Tan: I wrote, atfirst, question information, and then
active learners will question information while
passive learner will accept, then, active learners will
not accept all the information, then, there are words
“differ”and“information”in my notes, this is all I
have got
R: You only wrote down differ for this blank?
Tan: Yes, I cannotfigure out what the previous
notes mean
Protocol 4 (Gap No. 7; Correct answer;
TEM 4: 72; TEM 8 Mini: 6.5)Gao: Being able to question information, evaluate
and...Um. I will write accommodate.
R: What do you mean?
Gao: Um. Also I don’t write down the exact words,
but I write evaluate, read and hear, so I know it’s
about this part and then I wrote the new failed tofit
in what they know and I knowfit the new to the old
is accommodation. I also write down evaluate and
read and hear, the new fails tofit in what they
already knew
R: Then what will happen if the new doesn’tfit in?
Gao: Those learners will stay wondering. I didn’t
write the consequence. They failed to put orfit the
new to the already existent things and they need to
do, tofill in this, so they will accommodate
R: But here you used the word accommodate. Why?
It’s a complicated word
Gao: Because we learned educational psychology. It
says if there’s some connection between old
knowledge and new knowledge, then comes
accommodation and assimilation, so I come up with
the word accommodatefirst98 6 Employing the Think-Alound Method...