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The paper reports on an attempt to compare two data-
collecting instruments, Think-aloud Protocols and
Strategies Questionnaires, applied to capture
reading/writing strategies.
The subjects were immigrant speakers of linguistically
different heritage languages, Russian and Amharic (L1),
and thus represented two ethnic groups, who went through
the process of both acquiring the official language of
their new homeland (L2 = Hebrew) and learning the
language of international communication (FL = English).
The two data-collecting instruments, Think-aloud
Protocols and Strategies Questionnaires, were compared
with regard to the way in which the subjects reflected
on their reading/writing performance and were thus
validated against each other. Background and Attitudes
Questionnaires were administered to gather information
on the subjects' linguistic, cultural and educational
backgrounds.
The study addressed the following questions:
- To what extent do Think-aloud Protocols and
Strategies Questionnaires provide similar or different
information about reading and writing strategies?
- To what extent do specific subject-related factors
(language proficiency, educational and cultural
background, language attitudes and motivation,) account
for the similarities and the differences between the
information provided by the two instruments?
The study was set up as a case study; by virtue of its
ethnographic character it offers some interesting
insights into the differential representation of
individual strategies employed in the reading/writing
processes. Its limited scope, however, allows only for
tentative suggestions and not for generalizable
conclusions.
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