Peer Discourse Research Articles

Overshadowed by shadowing: exploring how Canadian medical students experience shadowing.

Preclinical medical students commonly perceive shadowing as beneficial for career exploration. However, research is sparse on the broader impact of shadowing as a learning strategy. We explored students' perceptions and lived experiences of shadowing to understand its role and impact on their personal and professional lives. Between 2020-2021, individual semi-structured video interviews were conducted with 15 Canadian medical students in this qualitative descriptive study. Inductive analysis proceeded concurrently with data collection until no new dominant concepts were identified. Data were iteratively coded and grouped into themes. Participants described internal and external factors that moulded shadowing experiences, arising tensions between intended and perceived experiences, and how these lived experiences impacted their wellness. Internal factors associated with shadowing behaviour included: 1) aspiring to be the best and shadowing to demonstrate excellence, 2) shadowing for career exploration, 3) shadowing as learning opportunities for early clinical exposure and career preparedness, and 4) reaffirming and redefining professional identity through shadowing. External factors were: 1) unclear residency match processes which position shadowing as competitive leverage, 2) faculty messaging that perpetuates student confusion around the intended value of shadowing, and 3) social comparison in peer discourse, fuelling a competitive shadowing culture. The tension between balancing wellness with career ambitions and the unintended consequences of unclear messaging regarding shadowing in a competitive medical culture highlights issues inherent in shadowing culture.

Relational Practice in Multilingual Peer Discourse: Talk as a Marker of Gender Identity

This paper examines relational practice in multilingual peer discourse to inspect the distinct identity patterns of the male and the female participants involved in gender dynamics. There is a growing impetus of discourse studies as an emerging area of sociolinguistic and ethno methodological research. In this paper, talk as a marker of gender identity is explored in the light of the theoretical framework suggested by Holmes (2006) who studies the different relational strategies of male and female interlocutors in workplace environment. In the current study, conversations of six male and female postgraduate students of English language at Sargodha University, Pakistan are recorded and transcribed to see how the participants create team as a relational practice using gender specific norms via talk. The study has found that the males create team through humor in discourse while females tilt towards small talk and frequent verbal gestures of approval. Moreover, masculinities and femininities of the peers are manifested in their style and function of the conversations. The study is significant because it is going to lay a foundation for the study and exploration of gender integrated conversations in multilingual context in Pakistani English and other varieties spoken in casual talk in Pakistan.

Collaborative writing as a bridge from peer discourse to individual argumentative writing

Converging evidence indicates that argumentative thinking and writing are promoted by peer discourse. Here it is proposed that collaborative writing can serve as a bridge from peer discourse to individual argumentative writing. Three groups of sixth graders participated in a study that tested this hypothesis. Two of the groups took part in a month-long intervention that emphasized engagement and practice in dialogic argumentation. These two groups differed only in addition of a joint writing activity in one group. The third group served as a non-intervention control. Final individual essays showed superior performance by the joint writing group. Essays of the superior group more frequently included evidence-based arguments. They also more often integrated belief-incongruent statements with belief-congruent ones. Group differences transferred in several respects to essays on a new topic. Results support the claim that engagement in collaborative writing offers a promising path in developing argumentative writing.

From Peer Discourse to Critical Moral Perspectives

From Peer Discourse to Critical Moral Perspectives

Comparing Individual and Group-Negotiated Knowledge Structures in an Introductory Biology Course for Majors

One of the key agendas for the emerging field of disciplinary-based education research is the evaluation of the trajectory of disciplinary knowledge development from novice to expert. However, with the ongoing promotion of student-centered and collaborative undergraduate science classrooms, it is unknown how peer discourse during these exercises might influence (promote or hinder) student construction of expert knowledge. This study documented the knowledge structures of n = 13 undergraduate biology students in a first semester biology course for majors across four instructional units. Participants constructed both individual and group-negotiated concept maps and map complexity, propositional stream similarity, and propositional accuracy were used as measures of quality of knowledge structure. Results indicated that on individually-constructed maps, in general, students had moderate quality knowledge structures when compared to experts. Individual map complexity seemed to increase over time, but stream similarity and propositional accuracy were more dependent on content unit. Group-constructed maps were consistently more accurate than individually-constructed maps. Results are discussed in the context of the use of collaborative concept mapping as a means to develop disciplinary expertise in biology.

The form and functions of newcomer EAL students’ speech in English: patterns of progression and communication in semi-structured interview dialogue

ABSTRACTAnalysis of progression in spoken English by newcomer migrant-background learners has traditionally oscillated between formal assessment of oral proficiency and ethnographic description of naturally occurring peer discourse. This paper reports on data gathered from a longitudinal study of newly arrived students with English as an additional language (EAL) in secondary schools in England. The corpus examined consists of semi-structured interviews with 22 students of different L1 backgrounds, each interviewed twice within a 12-month interval. Findings reveal marked improvement in comprehension with greatly reduced reliance on interpreters and clarification requests; limited range in use of verb tense, with heavy reliance on the present tense; areas of improvement in communicative function of speech mainly limited to conjecture, likes and dislikes, and expressions of feeling. Progression in the use of reported speech was limited for the group as a whole but where it was used it shed light on the individual's language development and into their views on their social experiences in their new environment. We argue that there is an urgent need for EAL practitioners and researchers to measure language development along similar lines in order to ground future policy-making in evidential knowledge of patterns of development in oral expression in English.

Languaging about intercultural communication: the occurrence and conceptual focus of intracultural peer collaborative dialogues

ABSTRACTThis study examined intracultural peers using language as a cognitive tool (i.e. languaging) to recognise, understand, and explain intercultural communication concepts. In pairs, 42 Korean public school teachers enrolled in an in-service program completed a describe-interpret-evaluate task through synchronous computer-mediated communication. To investigate languaging about intercultural communication, the analytic concept of language-related episode (LRE) was adapted to create intercultural communication meta-talk (IC-MT). Transcripts from the task were analysed for: (1) the occurrence of IC-MT, and (2) the focus of IC-MT instances in relation to concepts underlying intercultural communication. Results showed that IC-MT occurred at variable rates in peer discourse, sometimes included problematic interactional features, and focused on four aspects of intercultural communication. This study suggests that the intracultural peers use language in ways that create conditions for intercultural learning and that multiple factors mediate participation in collaborative dialogue. Pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed, in addition to avenues for future investigations on languaging and its role in the formation of intercultural competence.

Archaeology in the Era of Capitalism

While attempting to resolve the query at hand, this essay aims at directing the attention of the conversation to the macro-economic power plays and interactions which permeate modern and contemporary archaeological practice. First pointing out the effects market fluctuation has had on the activity’s intervenients, it then focuses on exposing how a politicized global financial crisis has brought about the precarization of an entire professional class, and the massification of a new type of practitioner, the occasional freelance archaeologist. Subjected to the instability of a system (the current economic paradigm), which it has long been made to enter a partnership with, archaeology seems to be unable to avoid its own asphyxiation and the one of its agents, in times of financial distress. This text records a very challenging time to the practice of archaeology, one in which its once profitable marriage to the capitalist economic logic now endangers the very democratization of the discipline, risking its substitution by a neo-elitization of sorts, if urgent measures to ensure the opposite are not taken. The focus is on what could be considered one of the main root causes behind the present question. It becomes inevitable to conclude that engaging on potentially segregational peer discourse is pointless and dangerous.

Overcoming problems in doctoral writing through the use of visualisations: telling our stories

Doctoral students experience many challenges on the long journey towards completion. Common problems include: synthesising data, working at a conceptual level, clarifying the relationship of the parts of the thesis to the whole, finding a voice and completing a viva successfully. Few authors have addressed the use of visualisations to meet these challenges. This paper focuses on the use of visualisations in doctoral writing. It presents narratives about seven ways that visualisations can help students to make breakthroughs in their writing, namely, as an organiser of the relationships of the parts of the thesis to the whole, a trigger for peer discourse, a vehicle for conceptual work, a metaphor to express key concepts, a trigger for professional development, a visual aid for the viva and as a prompt for freedrawing and freewriting.

Blogs: A Tool to Facilitate Reflection and Community of Practice in Sports Coaching?

A reflective approach to practice is consistently espoused as a key tool for understanding and enhancing coach learning and raising the vocational standards of coaches. As such, there is a clear need for practical tools and processes that might facilitate the development and measurement of “appropriate” reflective skills. The aim of this preliminary study was to explore the use of online blogs as a tool to support refection and community of practice in a cohort of undergraduate sports coaching students. Twenty-six students (6 females, 20 males) reflected on their coaching practice via blogs created specifically for refection. Blogs were subjected to category and content analysis to identify the focus of entries and to determine both the emergent reflective quality of posts and the extent to which an online community of practice emerged. Findings revealed that descriptive refection exceeded that of a critical nature, however, bloggers exhibited a positive trajectory toward higher order thinking and blogs were an effective platform for supporting tutor-student interaction. Despite the peer discourse features of blogs, collaborative refection was conspicuous by its absence and an online community of practice did not emerge.

Rethinking Authenticity: Voice and Feedback in Media Discourse

Abstract As authentic communicative practices, news writing and media discourse have the potential to serve as pedagogical tools for foreign language students to explore content of interest. This study analyzed university students’ media discourse in the virtual world of Second Life and subsequent revisions of their works in progress with respect to (1) journalistic headlines, (2) journalistic vocabulary, (3) journalistic organization, and (4) journalistic style. The results have revealed connections between voice and composition—that is, exchanging and sharing true thoughts and feelings while maintaining a self-image facilitated more concise, engaging, clear, and relevant news writing from new or different perspectives. Participants’ actions, perceptions, and movements also facilitated a better understanding of communicative practices specific to the virtual world. The results suggest that we should rethink authenticity in terms of content, contexts, purposes, and audiences to design computer-mediated collaborative learning tasks and support students’ authentic engagement of peers or other international speakers in lingua franca communication. This study may shed light on the future use of new media literacy and playful peer discourse in foreign language writing.

Learning through online peer discourse: Structural equation modeling points to the role of discourse activities in individual understanding

Although learning through discourse activities seems well-documented, it is unclear which mechanisms and behavioral variables are involved. What exactly contributes to learning when two or more learners interact in online learning environments? To analyze interrelations between central discourse activities and individual learning outcomes at the level of constructs, we applied structural equation modeling to data collected from 160 dyads engaging in written online learning discourses within a series of homogeneous experiments. We analyzed three theory-based indicators of conceptual elaboration activities during online discourse: the number of questions asked to receive information and expand knowledge, the number of explanations formulated to express individual knowledge, and the amount of on-task discourse. Individual conceptual understanding was represented by objective learning parameters that varied in each particular experimental task. These measured general understanding of the topic addressed and particular understanding of conceptual terms, complemented by the gain in individual self-assessed knowledge. Results of structural equation modeling revealed a strong effect of dyadic conceptual elaboration on individual understanding at the construct level, demonstrating that dyadic elaboration fosters the development of an elaborated individual understanding of specialist concepts and general content knowledge. Moreover, conceptual elaboration was best measured by the number of explanations during discourse. Implications regarding which features of collaborative learning settings promote mutual conceptual elaboration are discussed. ► We examine indicators of learning in online discourse. ► Structural equation modeling revealed strong effect of dyadic conceptual elaboration on individual conceptual understanding. ► Conceptual elaboration is best measured by explanations. ► Features for computer-mediated collaborative learning settings are discussed.

Discourses regarding ethical challenges in assessments - Insights through a novel approach

Orientation: From a pragmatic approach, a novel method called ‘the town hall focus group’ was utilised to provide insight into discourse regarding ethical issues in psychological assessments. This article contributes to the understanding of the practice of ethics in assessments and suggests the use of this particular method to facilitate discourse regarding ethical issues.Research purpose: To illustrate a forum where ethical discourse can occur in a practical fashion in order to deal with the diversity of situations, questions, demands and responsibilities experienced by psychologists.Motivation for the study: Although codes and guidelines on assessment exist, many psychologists feel that despite the existence of ethical beacons, they are often faced with challenges for which no obvious solution is evident. A need exists for ethical discourse by which psychologists grapple with unique situations through an active dialectical process.Research design, approach and method: A qualitative research approach was employed using the town hall focus group. The study was conducted with a convenience sample of 108 psychologists and practitioners.Main findings: The town hall focus group method provided an opportunity and platform for ethical discourse regarding the ethical challenges experienced by psychologists.Practical/managerial implications: This article contributes to the understanding of the practice of ethics in assessments by illustrating a platform for ethical discourse regarding ethical issues experienced in assessments. The town hall method appears to be valuable as it provides a forum to discuss ethical challenges where members are allowed to share their experiences and thus gain access to peer support, insight and shared resources.Contribution/value-add: Although the focus group results are not transferable, this article proposes it as a useful method contributing to the understanding of the ethical issues and challenges experienced in assessments. The novel method applied and described facilitates peer discourse regarding ethical challenges. This method could be replicated and applied in other contexts as a means of contending with ethical challenges within a supportive environment.

From focus groups to peer discourse sessions: The evolution of a method to capture language, meaning, and negotiation

In this article, the authors describe a unique approach to conducting and analyzing focus groups, described as peer discourse analysis. The primary objective of this analysis is to examine the shape and form of the discourses and negotiations that develop organically among peers in discussions of social issues. Peer discourse analysis has both descriptive and prescriptive utility, as it is also used to experiment with frames that might improve people's understanding of complex social problems.

What Are They Talking About? Lessons Learned from a Study of Peer Instruction

Electronic classroom response systems (CRSs) have been in use in large college lectures for over three decades. Such systems are designed to provide instructors and students with immediate statistical analyses of student electronic responses to multiple-choice questions posed to the class by the instructor. The technique known as peer instruction uses a CRS to tabulate student responses after students have had an opportunity to discuss ideas with seat partners. In this study, we investigate recorded peer CRS conversations collected in two introductory astronomy courses over two semesters. Findings suggest that when instructors adopt a high-stakes grading incentive that assigns little credit for incorrect CRS responses rather than providing forums for the spontaneous exploration of nascent ideas, conversations tend to become dominated by a single partner as students attempt to earn maximum credit for a correct answer. We also present a comparison of two methods for studying conversation bias in peer instruction discourse that could be valuable to other researchers interested in studying peer discourse.

Beyond Teachers' Sight Lines: Using Video Modeling to Examine Peer Discourse

The author describes her work in mathematics education discourse between student and peer and student and teacher. This article introduces readers to various examples of discourse analysis in mathematics education. Highlighted is interactional sociolinguistics, used in a present study to investigate peer discourse in a middle-school setting. Key findings from this study include the benefits of video modeling as a mechanism for fostering inclusive peer group work and the usefulness of video modeling as a tool for assessing peer communication. Implications for low performing students are discussed.

Writing in multi-party computer conferences and single authored assignments: Exploring the role of writer as thinker

The increasing use of computers to enable or replace face-to-face tutorial discussion groups in higher education is creating a new form of academic writing. This small-scale study of 43 students and three tutors identifies ways in which students present their opinions in a forum which allows greater time for reflection, but also creates a permanent record. The notion of collaborative learning in computer conferencing militates against taking a strong, possibly controversial, stance. Opinions are therefore hedged, or located in the peer discourse community rather than the individual. Through a corpus analysis of the use of the pronouns I, we and it we identify ways in which student writers are representing themselves and their views in both computer conferences and in single-authored essays. A powerful authorial voice was often associated not with the individual I, but with the collective we. In their single-authored essays, students drew upon the consensual voice developed in the conference discussion to support their personal points of view. In both genres, students made use of impersonal it-clauses, but frequently preceded them by personal frames such as I think, thereby resisting the impersonal, but powerful, voice of much academic discourse. This paper contributes to our developing understanding of evolving student writing practices in disciplinary settings.

Do children apologize to each other? Apology events in young Israeli peer discourse

Children's apologies are greatly under-researched. Though there is wealth of information available on the pragmatics of apologies generally, we know much less about whether and how children apologize. Our study explores modes of remedial work by Israeli children in peer discourse. The data were collected through ethnographic observation of Israeli preschool and preadolescents, and consist of 57 (taped and transcribed) apology events identified in natural peer interactions. The analysis of children's apology events revealed a rich range of apology strategies used by 4–6 year old children, indicating the acquisition of remedial competencies for face management at a relatively early age and showed that with age, a richer range of potential violations is identified, and more elaborate forms of repair are being used, indicating a growing sensitivity to the other's face needs. Furthermore, we found that adult intervention in children's conflictual situations serves to model remedial strategies, but is not necessarily effective for conflict resolution. Importantly, peer talk apology events index the centrality of friendship in young children's social world: breaches from expected behavior in play are taken as face threatening to the core of friendship, namely the children's shared face as friends, and hence can function to end (even if temporarily) the friendship. Consequently, in such cases, the restoration of friendship becomes a necessary precondition for the felicitous realization of an apology.

Professional Teacher Learning in Virtual Environments

This article is based on qualitative empirical research into the ways in which teachers view their experiences as learners in the context of an online tutor group who are studying for the mixed-mode Master of Teaching degree at the Institute of Education, University of London. Data collected from a stratified sample of teacher participants is analysed according to themes which focus on the social and psychological dimensions of the e-learning experience. Embracing the collaborative potential of electronic discussion groups emerges as potentially problematic, and bringing about change in participants' perception of the medium to facilitate their own learning and the learning of others emerges as a complex process. The teachers offer multiple and contradictory accounts of their online activities, and polarised conceptions of ‘autonomous’ and ‘collaborative’ learning are inadequate to describe their experiences. Conclusions indicate that participants adopt various degrees of (sub)conscious adaptation and resistance to the collaborative learning context. By drawing on Schwienhorst's classification of learning perspectives in computer-assisted foreign language learning, the authors propose that participants exhibit ‘learning trajectories’ which can be identified in in terms of the differing relations that exist between the individual, the online texts they engage with and electronic peer discourse.

Constructing a Joint Story-Writing Space: The Dynamics of Young Children's Collaboration at Computers

This study explored kindergartners' and first graders' collaborative processes to understand the nature of peer collaboration and the learning opportunities afforded by peer discourse. Data were drawn from 6 dyads who participated in a computer writing project for 2 school semesters. Children's videotaped interactions were analyzed with the focus on understanding how children's collaborative roles and patterns changed over time. Examination of video data and children's computer products revealed that (a) children's interaction patterns changed from a more independent style toward a more integrative style, as shown in their distribution of control over mouse and keyboard and in the written outcomes of their collaboration; (b) a shift in role patterns emerged across repeated instances of peer collaboration so that children began alternating the roles of leader and observer, and less competent children began carrying out more important tasks; and (c) the computer served as an object of reference for children to sustain their interaction and stay on task.