Interactive Conversational Words as Markers of Knowledge-Negotiation in Medical Problem-Based Learning Transcripts: A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

Background: The study aims to provide a more global understanding of the knowledge-negotiation interactions occurring in problem-based learning tutorials by analysing interactive conversational words (ICWs) as structural markers of students’ interactional boundaries. Methods: We used Wmatrix 3 software to extract frequent ICWs from 253,145 word-corpus compiled from professionally transcribed transcripts of 56 first-year medical students and seven facilitators. The concordance lines of the frequent ICWs were thematically analysed to define their functions. Extracts of verbal exchanges were provided to illustrate how the knowledge negotiation unfolded. Chi-square statistics were used to quantitatively compare the ICWs frequencies across the tutorial sessions. A significant p-value was set at less than 0.05. Results: Overall, the ICWs were least prevalent in the second tutorial session. Affirmation ICWs were more prevalent than other types of ICWs across the tutorial sessions. The ICWs served seventeen frequent functions of which acknowledgement, confirming and addition predominated. The students frequently discussed subject matter content, and the discussion was of exploratory nature. There were several incomplete and sentence-completion statements. Conclusion: The corpus-based analysis provides a complementary perspective on the verbal interactions occurring in the PBL tutorials in practice. The students’ verbal exchanges were collaborative and exploratory, but the students seemed to have had turn-taking problems. The implications of the study are that the corpus-based methodology could be used to explore several PBL research questions including those previously explored non-linguistically. The PBL discourse, as a means of initiating medical students into professional practice, requires monitoring to ensure compliance with educational theory and policy