Integrated discourse analysis & learning skills framework for class conversations

• Main Authors: TAN, Devyn Wei Hung, GOTTIPATI Swapna, SHIM, Kyong Jin, SHANKARARAMAN, Venky
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: Collaborative learning analysis; Online Discussion Forums; PDTB framework; Learner’s profile; Databases and Information Systems; Instructional Media Design
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/6841; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/7844/viewcontent/09637384.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Constructive interactions through discussion forums allow students to open their horizons and thought processes to acquire more knowledge and develop skills. Thus, discussion forums play an important role in supporting learning. Additionally, the discussion forum provides the content for creating a knowledge repository. It contains discussion threads related to key course topics that are debated by the students. One approach to understanding the student learning experience is through the analysis of the discussion threads. This research proposes the application of discourse analysis and collaborative learning frameworks to discussion forums to gain further insights into the student’s learning in a classroom. It is a foray into discourse analysis using in-class discussions. It demonstrates the application of Soller’s framework and Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB) to understand interactions at the discourse and semantic level. It also shows the use of unsupervised automated techniques to diagnose interactions in textual data. In this paper, we present an Integrated Discourse Analysis and Collaborative Learning Skills (IDALS) framework based on in-class discussions. We describe our experiences of applying IDALS framework and evaluating the solution model in a graduate in-class discussion forum. We also highlight the benefits of using visualizations to present the insights to the instructors.