The Virtual Revisit Think Aloud

The virtual revisit think aloud is a variation of the retrospective think aloud method and allows participants to review and comment on a visual recording of how they interacted with a particular website. The goal of the virtual revisit is to aid recall of original events and thought processes by using a screen-capture recording of participants’ navigational experiences. Similar to cued retrospective reporting where participants are given instructions to report retrospectively on the basis of a record of observations, the virtual revisit think aloud combines a retrospective think aloud with screen capture technology to aid recall of original events and thought processes.

Read more about a study that compared the effectiveness of the virtual revisit think aloud with the concurrent and retrospective techniques.

Read more about a collaborative writing project on the use digital research methods as forms of in-the-moment data collection.

In a recent study, members of the research team used the virtual revisit think aloud remotely, allowing teachers from across the province to be part of the study via Zoom.

Web analytics

Web analytics generate data on user profiles and provide essential information about users’ interactions with online resources. We are currently using web analytics to monitor the use of online resources through web metrics and visitor logs of a high-traffic research-based professional development website to better understand the characteristics of online behavioural patterns. Based on the availability of sophisticated web analytics tools, we are using Matomo Analytics (www.matomo.org), a free open-source web analytics tool. This current investigation is based on a pilot study that used web analytics to look at trends and patterns of users over the course of 12 months.