Commentary on Aitken et al.'s (2010) 'Comparison of 'think aloud' and observation as data collection methods in the study of decision making regarding sedation in intensive care patients'

摘要

Nurses' clinical decisions area fertile ground for researchers interested in examining the ways in which professionals combine sensory clinical information, with professional knowledge, a contestable (Benner, 1984) intuitive '6th sense' about patients and probabilistic reasoning about possible consequences; a process of synthesis that all takes place in conditions of "irreducible uncertainty" (Hammond, 1996). The challenge for researchers is that decision making and judgement happens in what might be termed a cognitive "black box". In other words, we can see the actions that arise from judgement and choices made, we can hear the words that someone chooses to use to express concepts such as risk to a patient or colleague, but we cannot directly "see" a judgement or a decision. We can only infer from peoples' actions (through observation) or words (through "think aloud") the weight, role, amount and quality of information synthesis that led to the action. This conceptual,