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Do Psychology Researchers Tell It Like It Is? A Microgenetic Analysis Of Research Strategies And Self-Report Accuracy, David F. Feldon

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

Acquiring research skills is considered to be a highly challenging aspect of developing expertise in the social sciences. Because instruction and mentoring in these skills are typically grounded in the self-report of researchers, difficulties in learning the material may be due to the content and accuracy of these explanations. Using a mixed-method, microgenetic design, this study examines the explanations of problem-solving processes by researchers along a continuum of expertise during simulated experiment design and subsequent data analysis. Findings indicate that participants’ self-explanations are largely inaccurate. Further, frequency of inaccurate statements is positively associated with the frequency of abstract cognitive processes, …