Abstracts - Earli

Analysis of verbal and gesture productions in studies on learning processes in scienceAndree Tiberghien, Universitity Lyon 2, FranceJean-Francois Le Marechal, ENS-Lyon, FranceDavid Cross, Universitity Lyon 2, FranceLayal Malkoun, Universitity Lyon 2, FranceThe presentation will be focused on the methodology of analysis of classroom productions(utterances and gestures of teacher and students). The chosen perspective is the knowledgeinvolved in classroom practices. We consider that the taught knowledge is staged in the classroomby teacher and the students’ joint action. Following Grice, we distinguish between conventional(taught knowledge) and understood meanings (students’ or teacher’s understanding). Here, wepropose a methodology to analyse these types of knowledge: taught knowledge and knowledgeunderstood by the students or the teacher at two time scales, the meso scale (about ten minutes) atwhich ideas are developed in the class, and the micro scale (about seconds), which is the scale ofinteractions between individuals (teacher and students). The collected data, which thismethodology works out, consist of several hours of video recordings of physics and chemistryclassrooms at 10th and 12th grades during teaching sequences on a specific part of the officialcurriculum (in physics and in chemistry). The meso scale analysis is based on a thematic approach.The discursive productions (including gestures) can be divided into units of about ten minutes. Themicro scale analysis is based on a decomposition of knowledge into "facets". Processing facets(without recomposing them to get a concept meaning for example) leads the researcher tocharacterize classroom according to the density and continuity of the taught knowledge.Treatments involving meso and micro levels allow the researcher to compare this taughtknowledge to the meanings constructed by the students.Concept mapping as an additional interview step to allow for data reduction and memberchecking with participantsFlorian C. Haerle, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USAThe focus of this presentation is to introduce concept mapping as second step of the interviewprocess that allows for data reduction and member check with the interviewee simultaneously.Concept mapping software (i.e., IHMC Cmap Tool software) is used as essential part of thismethod to account for computer based-data collection, which in turn allows for the efficient use ofqualitative data analysis software. The data collection entails two steps: (1) During the interview,the interviewer captures and reduces the interviewee’s answers in writing. The concept mapsoftware is used in this process; for each (smallest) semantic unit of an answer a digital card iscreated (concept) which contains the written reduction of the semantic unit. (2) The digital cardsare connected with links and links are provided with thematic labels. It is the interviewee who ismaking the decision which cards should be linked with each other and which theme should be usedas label. This linking and labeling process is used to member check (validate) with the intervieweethe reduction of his/her answers (content of the digital cards) and to make corrections if necessary.The graphic files of the created concept maps can be later uploaded into software programs for theanalysis of qualitative data (e.g., ATLAS.ti). This method was successfully used in two interviewstudies with fourth and sixth graders exploring their personal epistemology (i.e., conceptions aboutknowledge and knowing). 140 concept maps were generated following this method of datareduction and member checking. The methodologically comparison with traditional interviewmethods revealed that the presented methods is more accurate in the reduction process andoutcome of interview data. My presentation will entail a demonstration of this new method as it– 776 –