PRE-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING EXPERIENCES VIEWED AS A CULTURAL ACTIVITY

What are the experiences of career-changing pre-service middle school teachers undergoing a group-based activity as part of their training? This series of studies explored two aspects of answering this question. In the first manuscript, a methodology of a novel virtual phenomenology interview technique attempts to determine the influence of a virtual world interviewer compared to a traditional face-to-face setting. While syntactical and other significant differences were found, there was no significant difference found comparing meaning units derived from both settings. In the second manuscript, these meaning units were analyzed to create an essence of the experience for the study\u27s participants, using a modified version of Moustakas\u27 (1994) phenomenology technique viewed through the lens of Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987). The transcripts of participants were analyzed using this phenomenological technique yielded five meaning themes: Teamwork Function, Grade Orientation, Assignment Structure Conflict, Theory versus Practice Divergence, and Tool for Future Practice. Tensions within the elements of the activity system were identified from the interview transcripts and examined. These findings were used to create a composite textural description, a composite structural description, explained using a graphic depiction of knotworking (Engeström, 1999), and a narrative essence of the experience. A conclusion of both studies, noting a summary of the findings, implications for teacher education, limitations of the studies, and recommendations for future research is also presented

Understanding Collaborative Sensemaking for System Design — An Investigation of Musicians\u27 Practice

There is surprisingly little written in information science and technology literature about the design of tools used to support the collaboration of creators. Understanding collaborative sensemaking through the use of language has been traditionally applied to non-work domains, but this method is also well-suited for informing hypotheses about the design collaborative systems. The presence of ubiquitous, mobile technology, and development of multi-user virtual spaces invites investigation of design which is based on naturalistic, real world, creative group behaviors, including the collaborative work of musicians. This thesis is considering the co-construction of new (musical) knowledge by small groups. Co-construction of new knowledge is critical to the definition of an information system because it emphasizes coordination and resource sharing among group members (versus individual members independently doing their own tasks and only coming together to collate their contributions as a final product). This work situates the locus of creativity on the process itself, rather than on the output (the musical result) or the individuals (members of the band). This thesis describes a way to apply quantitative observations to inform qualitative assessment of the characteristics of collaborative sensemaking in groups. Conversational data were obtained from nine face-to-face collaborative composing sessions, involving three separate bands producing 18 hours of recorded interactions. Topical characteristics of the discussion, namely objects, plans, properties and performance; as well as emergent patterns of generative, evaluative, revision, and management conversational acts within the group were seen as indicative of knowledge construction. The findings report the use of collaborative pathways: iterative cycles of generation, evaluation and revision of temporary solutions used to move the collaboration forward. In addition, bracketing of temporary solutions served to help collaborators reuse content and offload attentional resources. Ambiguity in language, evaluation criteria, goal formation, and group awareness meant that existing knowledge representations were insufficient in making sense of incoming data and necessitated reformulating those representations. Further, strategic use of affective language was found to be instrumental in bridging knowledge gaps. Based on these findings, features of a collaborative system are proposed to help in facilitating sensemaking routines at various stages of a creative task. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of collaborative sensemaking during non-work, creative activities in order to inform the design of systems for supporting these activities. By studying an environment which forms a potential microcosm of virtual interaction between groups, it provides a framework for understanding and automating collaborative discussion content in terms of the features of dialogue

Development of English as a Second Language in the Context of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games

This dissertation examined the affordances of commercially developed massively multiplayer online (role-playing) games (MMOGs) for second language (L2) development. It comprises three self-contained but related studies. The first study, as a scoping review, synthesized 32 empirical papers, which investigated different aspects of L2 development in the context of these games. It sought to find out what aspects of L2 learning have been examined and how, and what the findings suggest regarding L2 learning opportunities and outcomes. This study highlighted that empirical research in this area is mainly qualitative and that L2-related affective factors, vocabulary, and communicative competence have been the most widely investigated topics. It concluded that MMOGs afford socially supportive and emotionally safe environments, which encourage L2 learners to use multiple opportunities for enriching their L2 vocabulary and enhancing their communicative competence in the target language. The second study was an exploratory research. It adopted an interactionist approach to characterize the nature of the negotiations of meaning that occurred in the conversational exchanges between native (NES) and non-native English speakers (NNESs) playing World of Warcraft. The data consisted of 63 hours of audio-recorded, in-game conversations over a 5-month period. The participants consisted of an NES and 6 NNESs who were divided into two groups (low and high intermediate) according to their English language proficiency. This study identified and characterized the most frequently occurred triggers, indicators, responses and reaction to the responses in three types of dyadic conversational exchanges. The third study examined L2 development through ―usage-based‖ theories of language learning. It was a time-series (longitudinal) research that examined the trend of changes in the linguistic complexity of the NNESs‘ spoken discourse during a 5-month period of gameplay. This examination involved repeated (in three equally-distributed time intervals) calculations of fourteen syntactic complexity indices and the indices associated with three components of lexical complexity (diversity, sophistication, and density). Overall, the results turned out to be more promising for the low intermediate than the high intermediate group of the NNESs. More detailed findings are presented and discussed in light of the current literature

Development of English as a Second Language in the Context of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games

This dissertation examined the affordances of commercially developed massively multiplayer online (role-playing) games (MMOGs) for second language (L2) development. It comprises three self-contained but related studies. The first study, as a scoping review, synthesized 32 empirical papers, which investigated different aspects of L2 development in the context of these games. It sought to find out what aspects of L2 learning have been examined and how, and what the findings suggest regarding L2 learning opportunities and outcomes. This study highlighted that empirical research in this area is mainly qualitative and that L2-related affective factors, vocabulary, and communicative competence have been the most widely investigated topics. It concluded that MMOGs afford socially supportive and emotionally safe environments, which encourage L2 learners to use multiple opportunities for enriching their L2 vocabulary and enhancing their communicative competence in the target language. The second study was an exploratory research. It adopted an interactionist approach to characterize the nature of the negotiations of meaning that occurred in the conversational exchanges between native (NES) and non-native English speakers (NNESs) playing World of Warcraft. The data consisted of 63 hours of audio-recorded, in-game conversations over a 5-month period. The participants consisted of an NES and 6 NNESs who were divided into two groups (low and high intermediate) according to their English language proficiency. This study identified and characterized the most frequently occurred triggers, indicators, responses and reaction to the responses in three types of dyadic conversational exchanges. The third study examined L2 development through ―usage-based‖ theories of language learning. It was a time-series (longitudinal) research that examined the trend of changes in the linguistic complexity of the NNESs‘ spoken discourse during a 5-month period of gameplay. This examination involved repeated (in three equally-distributed time intervals) calculations of fourteen syntactic complexity indices and the indices associated with three components of lexical complexity (diversity, sophistication, and density). Overall, the results turned out to be more promising for the low intermediate than the high intermediate group of the NNESs. More detailed findings are presented and discussed in light of the current literature

“Envisioning Digital Sanctuaries”: An Exploration of Virtual Collectives for Nurturing Professional Development of Women in Technical Domains

Work and learning are essential facets of our existence, yet sociocultural barriers have historically limited access and opportunity for women in multiple contexts, including their professional pursuits. Such sociocultural barriers are particularly pronounced in technical domains and have relegated minoritized voices to the margins. As a result of these barriers, those affected have suffered strife, turmoil, and subjugation. Hence, it is important to investigate how women can subvert such structural limitations and find channels through which they can seek support and guidance to navigate their careers. With the proliferation of modern communication infrastructure, virtual forums of conversation such as Reddit have emerged as key spaces that allow knowledge-sharing, provide opportunities for mobilizing collective action, and constitute sanctuaries of support and companionship. Yet, recent scholarship points to the negative ramifications of such channels in perpetuating social prejudice, directed particularly at members from historically underrepresented communities. Using a novel comparative muti-method, multi-level empirical approach comprising content analysis, social network analysis, and psycholinguistic analysis, I explore the way in which virtual forums engender community and foster avenues for everyday resilience and collective care through the analysis of 400,267 conversational traces collected from three subreddits (r/cscareerquestions, r/girlsgonewired & r/careerwoman). Blending the empirical analysis with a novel theoretical apparatus that integrates insights from social constructivist frameworks, feminist data studies, computer-supported collaborative work, and computer-mediated communication, I highlight how gender, care, and community building intertwine and collectively impact the emergent conversational habits of these online enclaves. Key results indicate six content themes ranging from discussions on knowledge advancement to scintillating ethical probes regarding disparities manifesting in the technical workplace. Further, psycholinguistic and network insights reveal four pivotal roles that support and enrich the communities in different ways. Taken together, these insights help to postulate an emergent spectrum of relationality ranging from a more agentic to a more communal pattern of affinity building. Network insights also yield valuable inferences regarding the role of automated agents in community dynamics across the forums. A discussion is presented regarding the emergent routines of care, collective empowerment, empathy-building tactics, community sustenance initiatives, and ethical perspectives in relation to the involvement of automated agents. This dissertation contributes to the theory and practice of how virtual collectives can be designed and sustained to offer spaces for enrichment, empowerment, and advocacy, focusing on the professional development of historically underrepresented voices such as women

Talking a team into being in online workplace collaborations: the discourse of virtual work

Digital communication technologies led to a revolution in how people interact at work: relying on computer-mediated communication technologies is now a must, rather than an alternative. This empirical study investigates how colleagues in a virtual team use synchronous online communication platform in the workplace. Inspired by the conceptualisation of web-based communication platforms as tool, place or context of social construction, we explore the discursive strategies that contribute to the construction of the team’s shared sense of purpose and identity, a collegial atmosphere and consequently lead to effective collaboration. The close analyses of real-life data from a multinational workplace provide insights into the everyday communication practices of virtual team members. Our findings supplement organisational literature based on etic observations of the effectiveness of virtual work and provide a basis for further theorisations about how communication technologies affect the ecology of and discourse practices in computer-mediated communication at work