Humour in writing centre consultations

In especially the context of a writing centre, learning takes place during, and as part of, the conversations between the writing centre consultant and the student. This interaction is an integral part of writing centre research and is the focus of this largely qualitative study, employing a politeness lens. While there is some research on the politeness strategies employed by writing center consultants, there is very little research on the use of humour and its accompanying laughter to enhance rapport and interaction. The use of humour in the context of a writing centre is particularly relevant especially in light of the power dynamics and ‘distance’ inherent in the student-consultant relationship. This study therefore analysed a corpus of 10 video-recorded and transcribed writing centre consultations through a politeness lens in an effort to fill this gap. Our findings indicate that humour used positively can have positive effects, bridge the gap and create rapport and solidarity in complex relationships. The analysis also demonstrates how humour and laughter as used in the context of a writing centre consultation enhances interaction, creates a more positive learning environment and lessens the stress and anxiety students generally associate with academic writing

Interventions to Regulate Confusion during Learning

Confusion provides opportunities to learn at deeper levels. However, learners must put forth the necessary effort to resolve their confusion to convert this opportunity into actual learning gains. Learning occurs when learners engage in cognitive activities beneficial to learning (e.g., reflection, deliberation, problem solving) during the process of confusion resolution. Unfortunately, learners are not always able to resolve their confusion on their own. The inability to resolve confusion can be due to a lack of knowledge, motivation, or skills. The present dissertation explored methods to aid confusion resolution and ultimately promote learning through a multi-pronged approach. First, a survey revealed that learners prefer more information and feedback when confused and that they preferred different interventions for confusion compared to boredom and frustration. Second, expert human tutors were found to most frequently handle learner confusion by providing direct instruction and responded differently to learner confusion compared to anxiety, frustration, and happiness. Finally, two experiments were conducted to test the effectiveness of pedagogical and motivational confusion regulation interventions. Both types of interventions were investigated within a learning environment that experimentally induced confusion via the presentation of contradictory information by two animated agents (tutor and peer student agents). Results showed across both studies that learner effort during the confusion regulation task impacted confusion resolution and that learning occurred when the intervention provided the opportunity for learners to stop, think, and deliberate about the concept being discussed. Implications for building more effective affect-sensitive learning environments are discussed

An exploration of off topic conversation

In a corpus of expert tutoring dialogue, conversation that is considered to be off topic (non-pedagogical) according to a previous coding scheme is explored for its value in tutoring dynamics. Using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool, phases of tutoring categorized as off topic were compared with interactive problem solving phases to explore how the two differ on the emotional, psychological, and topical dimensions analyzed by LIWC. The results suggest that conversation classified as off topic serves as motivation and broad pedagogy in tutoring. These findings can be used to orient future research on off topic conversation, and help to make sense of both previous coding schemes and noisy data sets. © 2010 Association for Computational Linguistics

An exploration of off topic conversation

In a corpus of expert tutoring dialogue, conversation that is considered to be off topic (non-pedagogical) according to a previous coding scheme is explored for its value in tutoring dynamics. Using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool, phases of tutoring categorized as off topic were compared with interactive problem solving phases to explore how the two differ on the emotional, psychological, and topical dimensions analyzed by LIWC. The results suggest that conversation classified as off topic serves as motivation and broad pedagogy in tutoring. These findings can be used to orient future research on off topic conversation, and help to make sense of both previous coding schemes and noisy data sets. © 2010 Association for Computational Linguistics

An exploration of off topic conversation

In a corpus of expert tutoring dialogue, conversation that is considered to be “off topic” (non-pedagogical) according to a previous coding scheme is explored for its value in tutoring dynamics. Using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool, phases of tutoring categorized as “off topic ” were compared with interactive problem solving phases to explore how the two differ on the emotional, psychological, and topical dimensions analyzed by LIWC. The results suggest that conversation classified as “off topic ” serves as motivation and broad pedagogy in tutoring. These findings can be used to orient future research on “off topic ” conversation, and help to make sense of both previous coding schemes and noisy data sets.