Questions in Time: Investigating the Structure and Dynamics of Unfolding Classroom Discourse

TLDR

Bakhtin’s distinction between monologic and dialogic discourse underpins the study, framing teacher‑student interactions as dialogic spells that previous work links to achievement. The study aims to use event‑history analysis to quantify how the antecedents and consequences of discourse moves shape the inertia and unfolding of classroom discourse. The authors applied event‑history analysis to a large corpus of coded teacher and student questions from over 200 middle‑ and high‑school classrooms, computing probabilities of move effects and contrasting static and dynamic conditions that prompt and sustain dialogic discourse. Results show that authentic teacher questions, uptake, and especially student questions act as dialogic bids, and that event‑history analysis is a powerful tool for investigating unfolding discourse structure.

Abstract

In the 1st-ever use of event-history analysis to investigate discourse processes quantitatively, this study recasts understanding of discourse in terms of the (a) antecedents and (b) consequences of discourse participant "moves" as they (c) affect the inertia of the discourse and accordingly structure unfolding discourse processes. The method is used to compute the probabilities of the effects of particular discourse moves on subsequent discourse patterns and to measure and systematically contrast static (macrosocial) and dynamic (microsocial) conditions prompting and sustaining dialogic discourse. Theoretically, the authors draw on Russian scholar Mikhail Bakhtin's epistemological distinctions between monologic and dialogic discourse to identify pedagogically rich sequences of teacher-student interaction as dialogic spells and discussion, which the authors' previous work has shown to contribute to achievement. Empirically, the authors examine data collected in hundreds of observations of more than 200 8th- and 9th-grade English and social studies classrooms in 25 Midwestern middle and high schools, including detailed coding of more than 33,000 teachers and student questions. Results show that authentic teacher questions, uptake, and student questions function as dialogic bids with student questions showing an especially large effect. Discourse event history analysis is a powerful tool for investigating the structure of unfolding discourse.