SHAPA is an interactive verbal protocol analysis tool based on Ericsson and Simon's (1984) recommendations for verbal protocol analysis (Sanderson, James, and Seidler, 1989). It provides a “shell” for carrying out protocol analysis. This paper shows how SHAPA has been used in three different domains: (1) the control of a complex continuous process, (2) a task where subjects give navigational information to active or passive listeners, and (3) the control of a simple city transport system. These examples show how SHAPA can help researchers collect data about the frequencies with which certain categories of verbalization occur and determine the patterns into which they fall.
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