1. Analysis of Inter-action in a
e-learning community
M. Antonietta Impedovo
Paola F. Spadaro
M. Beatrice Ligorio
University of Bari (IT)
ISCAR Settembr 2011 - ROMA
2. Introduction
Online learning environments are often used in
University education as discussion spaces, to construct
knowledge, to negotiate meanings.
How to analyse
on-line asynchrony interactions?
There is a need for theories about interaction and
methods of analysis to understand the complexity of online interactions
3. Background
Pragmatics is an aspect of communication thanks to
which phonetics is shaped in meaning, and meaning is
shaped in social actions
Speech Action Theory (SAT) conceptualizes how
messages pragmatically act, as gestures, and then
effect on social activities (Austin, 1962; Searle,
1969)
Activity Theory (AT) highlights various levels of social
activity (Engeström, 1987; Leontiev, 1940)
4. Aims
Observe the dimensions of the Activity Theory
(AT) in an online learning environment:
•How the AT dimensions occur in a learning
forum?
•How they contribute to the construction of
meaning? Particular focus on interactions
between two dimensions: Subject dimension
and Object dimension.
5. Data
data: 72 messages posted in a discussion
forum in Synergeia (Ligorio & Veermans,
2005).
participants: 10 university students (7 males
and 3 female) participating to a blended
course
6. Inter-Actions Network Analysis
Step I : Discourse Analysis
Step II : Content Analysis to identify elements of the AT
a) Build the system of categories
b) Segment posts in unicategorial portions
c) Identify the relationships between elicitation of
segments
Step III : Social Network Analysis to identify the
structure of the discourse. Nodes of a network of
segments eliciting and elicited by segments
7. Network density= 0,10
Every functions of communication concurs to develop the
discussion. Some functions have a more central role in
generating concatenation of communicative actions.
Other functions, instead, are not at all connected.
8. Betweenness centrality defines the flow of actions passing
through a node. Modality of Interaction has the role of mediator
the inter-action. Community is also crucial in mediating the
concatenation between actions.
9. Conclusions
Messages posted on the forum are not simple
communication units. They contain a variety of
communicative actions.
• This study indicates:
which dimensions are more important in a
university blended context
offers some information to improve discussions
in e-learning environments.
