Conversation analysis, a close turn by turn study of talk, of the authors' own data analysis sessions. The sessions belonged to a research group spanning three Brisbane universities and were recorded in mid-2010.
A research groupThe Transcript Analysis Group met fortnightly across three Brisbane universities, with between 10 and 30 members present.
Recorded sessionsTwo data analysis sessions in mid-2010 and a reflexive session were audio recorded.
Three extractsThree extracts were drawn from the three recorded sessions.
Close analysisMembers analysed the talk turn by turn, attending to noticings, analytic descriptions and summing-up formulations.
BWhat the study found
How newcomers took partnoticings, meaning things pointed out in the data
•In one session, a new doctoral student noticed a pattern the transcriber had missed for years.At her first session, the student pointed out a speaker's repeated 'probably'. Unlike classroom questioning, her contribution could be new to everyone.
•In these sessions, producing a noticing often earned the floor more than seniority did.A member who pointed out something in the data gained loose ownership of it and the right to direct the talk.
•In one session, an experienced member helped a newcomer build her observation across turns.A postgraduate student suggested the talk came from a crime setting. An experienced member reformulated it as a police interview and helped her develop it.
How expertise was shownformulations, technical terms and blurred roles
•In these sessions, experienced members closed sequences with summaries beginning with 'so'.These summaries added technical terms such as 'epistemic downgrade', redirecting the talk and keeping members' expert standing visible.
•In these sessions, the line between novice and expert members was blurred.The sessions were democratic and collaborative. The paper argues expertise is a fluid social achievement, produced in the talk itself.
•The paper does not claim these findings generalise to all data analysis sessions.Nor does the paper claim the sessions show best practice. What novices take away from sessions remains an open question.
CKey takeaway
Pedagogy-in-action in data analysis sessions can build expertise together in talk. When noticing something in the data earns the floor, newcomers can lead while experts shape and name their ideas.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
Data analysis sessions are a common feature of discourse-analytic communities, often involving participants with varying levels of expertise to those with significant expertise. Learning how to do data analysis and working with transcripts, however, are often new experiences for doctoral candidates within the social sciences. While many guides to doctoral education focus on procedures associated with data analysis (Heath et al., 2010; McHoul and Rapley, 2001; Silverman, 2011; Wetherall et al., 2001), the in situ practices of doing data analysis are relatively undocumented. This chapter has been collaboratively written by members of a special interest research group, the Transcript Analysis Group (TAG), who meet regularly to examine transcripts representing audio-and video-recorded interactional data. Here, we investigate our own actual interactional practices and participation in this group, where each member is both analyst and participant. We particularly focus on the pedagogic practices enacted in the group through investigating how members engage in the scholarly practice of data analysis. A key feature of talk within the data sessions is that members work collaboratively to identify and discuss ‘noticings’ from the audio-recorded and transcribed talk being examined, produce analytic observations based on these discussions, and evaluate these observations. Our investigation of how talk constructs social practices in these sessions shows that participants move fluidly between actions that demonstrate pedagogic practices and expertise. Within any one session, members can display their expertise as analysts and, at the same time, display that they have gained an understanding that they did not have before. We take an ethnomethodological position that asks ‘what’s going on here?’ in the data analysis session. By observing the in situ practices in fine-grained detail, we show how members participate in the data analysis sessions and make sense of a transcript.
Research brief
By J. Harris, M. Theobald, S. Danby, E. Reynolds, Sean Rintel, and Transcript Analysis Group (TAG).
Takeaway: In Conversation Analysis data analysis sessions, expertise is a fluid, shared achievement. Spotting something in the data, not seniority, earned the floor, so newcomers could hold it while others helped build their observation across turns. Experts kept their status by closing these sequences with 'so'-prefaced summaries adding technical analytic terms.
Why this matters
What was known
Guides to doctoral education cover analytic procedures, and little research examines pedagogic practices in university settings. the in situ practices of doing data analysis are relatively undocumented(p. 1)
What this paper adds
Members of the Transcript Analysis Group (TAG) analyse recordings of their own data sessions to show how pedagogy happens in the talk. Here, we investigate our own actual interactional practices and participation in this group where each member is both analyst and participant(p. 1)
Who it matters to
Doctoral candidates, their supervisors, and the discourse research community that runs data analysis sessions. The value of such examination is a greater understanding of just how and where, in any given discipline, pedagogy actually occurs(pp. 11–12)
Research questions
What's going on here? How do members engage in the scholarly practice of data analysis in data analysis sessions, and what pedagogic practices are enacted in the group?
How do members participate in the data analysis sessions and make sense of a transcript?
Method and data
Design
Ethnomethodological and conversation-analytic study of the authors' own data analysis sessions, analysed reflexively by the members themselves.
Setting
The Transcript Analysis Group (TAG), meeting fortnightly across three Brisbane universities, with between 10 and 30 members present.
Participants / data
Three extracts from three audio-recorded TAG sessions, including two audio-recorded data analysis sessions in mid-2010 and a reflexive session.
Duration
Sessions recorded in mid-2010.
Analysis
Fine-grained sequential analysis of the talk, attending to noticings, analytic descriptions and formulations.
Findings
A newcomer's first noticing was new to everyone. At her first session of the group, a new doctoral student pointed out that a speaker repeatedly said 'probably', which the experienced researcher who had transcribed the data years earlier had never noticed. Unlike classroom questioning, where the teacher already knows the answer: #
“In this setting, however, the pedagogy is such that a new member can contribute an observation before being asked, and her contribution may be new to everyone.”
Noticings, not rank, earn the floor. Across the sessions, producing a noticing often gave a member loose ownership of it and the right to hold and direct the talk, more than seniority or length of membership did. #
“there is no predetermined pattern of interaction employed routinely by members.”
Observations are built together. Analytic observations were built over several turns. For example, a postgraduate student at her first meeting suggested the talk could be from 'a crime' setting. An experienced member reformulated it as a police interview and helped her develop the point. Such sequences usually closed in a recognisable way: #
“members regularly mark the end of these collaborative sequences with a formulation”
Experts steer with analytic terms. Experienced members used formulations beginning with 'so', and technical terms such as 'epistemic downgrade', to redirect the talk and scaffold newcomers' noticings, and in doing so kept their standing visible: #
“their 'expert' status as a researcher or experienced academic was constructed and maintained by their contribution of analytic descriptions to describe the noticings”
Novice and expert blur. Taken together, the sessions were democratic and collaborative, and the line between novice and expert members was blurred, which suggests that #
“assumptions regarding the identities and relationships between experts and novices may not always hold true”
Expertise is achieved, not assigned. Who counts as an expert is not fixed by institutional role but produced, moment by moment, in the talk itself. #
“Expertise is a fluid social achievement and, in these cases, a collaborative accomplishment.”
Questions this paper answers
Can newcomers contribute something new when analysing data with experts?
Yes. Unlike in classrooms, where teachers know the answers, anyone in a data session can offer a noticing unasked, and it can be new to everyone. At a Brisbane transcript analysis group, a doctoral student at her first session spotted a pattern the researcher who transcribed the data never had. (See p. 5.)
How is analysing talk taught in group data sessions?
Pedagogy happens in the doing. In recorded sessions of a long-running Brisbane transcript analysis group, postgraduate students offered noticings, and experienced members helped build them into analytic observations over several turns. These often closed with a 'so' formulation naming the point in analytic terms (for example, a 'tag question'). (See p. 8; pp. 10–11.)
Is expertise fixed by seniority in academic analysis groups?
Not in recorded sessions of a long-running Brisbane transcript analysis group. The right to lead the talk came from producing noticings rather than from institutional role, though experienced members' use of analytic terms also kept their expert standing visible. (See pp. 7–8; pp. 10–11; p. 11.)
Contributions and implications
Expertise and learning can be built by contributing to collaborative talk and analysis rather than being set by institutional roles.
Other settings of doctoral education could be examined in the same way, to understand where pedagogy actually occurs.
Limitations
The findings are not claimed to generalise to all data analysis sessions or to represent best practice. we do not claim that the findings are generalisable to all data analysis sessions, and nor would we argue that they represent best practice of analysis(p. 10)
It remains open what novices take away from sessions and how participation translates into members' own research. It is also an open question as to how participation in data analysis sessions translates within members' own research practices.(p. 10)
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Concepts
Noticing
Bringing a feature of a transcript to others' attention, often with some analytic description. Methodological guidelines often describe producing a 'noticing' as a first step in data analysis(p. 4)
Pedagogy-in-action
Our term for what these sessions offer: The data analysis sessions offer a pedagogic arena for engaging in the practices of analysing talk and interaction; in other words, pedagogy-in-action.(pp. 3–4)
Ownership of a noticing
Following Sharrock, a claim that lets a member direct the talk: the production of a noticing often affords the member a loose 'ownership'(p. 5)
Formulation
Often so-prefaced here. Formulations close collaborative sequences and highlight implications of the talk. Formulations work as a 'summarizing type of utterance'(p. 8)
How to cite
J. Harris, M. Theobald, S. Danby, E. Reynolds, Sean Rintel, and Transcript Analysis Group (TAG). 2011. What’s going on here? The pedagogy of a data analysis session. Reshaping Doctoral Education: International Approaches and Pedagogies, 83-95. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203142783
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@inbook{harris2011what,
author = {Harris, J. and Theobald, M. and Danby, S. and Reynolds, E. and Rintel, Sean and {Transcript Analysis Group (TAG)}},
title = {What’s going on here? The pedagogy of a data analysis session},
booktitle = {Reshaping Doctoral Education: International Approaches and Pedagogies},
year = {2011},
month = {December},
publisher = {Routledge},
url = {https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203142783},
pages = {83-95},
chapter = {7},
isbn = {9780415618137},
edition = {1},
doi = {10.4324/9780203142783},
}