ABSTRACT
The use of think aloud protocol (TA) within the sport domain is becoming a popular method to understand athlete, practitioner, and participant cognitions in a variety of different areas such as decision-making, stress and coping, and expert-novice differences. This chapter explains TA to review literature using TA, both as a data collection tool and a performance enhancement tool, and offers directions for future research and practice. It discusses key literature, which has used TA from two different perspectives, un-picking the key research papers that have used TA to understand athlete cognition and presenting research that has used TA as a reflective practice tool to develop the athlete and coach. Coach education programs have responded to the dynamic and complex world that coaches work in on a daily basis and have begun to incorporate elements of experiential learning and reflective practice into both the formal and informal elements of courses.
