Capturing intuition through concurrent protocol analysis.

Abstract

A growing scholarly interest in intuition has led to the development of several methods designed to investigate this complex, non-conscious phenomenon. Notably, there has been a shift from relying exclusively on simplistic self-report measures of intuition to the adoption of more sophisticated methods designed to tap into the actual use of intuition. This shift has taken place as researchers began to realize that intuitive preference (or cognitive style) may not necessarily determine whether or not intuition is used in a particular situation (cognitive strategy) where other factors (such as task characteristics and domain-relevant experience) come into play (Gustafsson, 2006). Furthermore, scholars have questioned the reliability of individuals because their beliefs that their decisions are driven by intuition may be mistaken (Blume & Covin, 2011). This has led to calls for the adoption of multiple approaches to investigate intuition that combine traditional self-report measures of cognitive style with one or more of a range of alternative assessment techniques (Blume & Covin, 2011; Hodgkinson et al., 2008). One such technique is verbal protocol analysis (Hodgkinson & Sadler-Smith, 2011; Mitchell et al., 2005; Pretz, 2008). This chapter provides an account of how protocol analysis may be used for the ‘concurrent capturing of intuiting and intuitions at their moments of occurrence’ (Hodgkinson & Sadler- Smith, 2011: 59).