Eliciting Elaborate Responses from Students Participating in STEM
Activities
Claudia Brodkin, Tiffany Bumbarger, Yukyong Chung, Rebecca Miller, Miguel Nino, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
Email: clbrodki@vt.edu_1, tab26@vt.edu_2, janejyug@vt.edu_3, millerrk@vt.edu_4, mnino@vt.edu_5
Abstract: The interaction of students and teachers, specifically the type of questions posed by teachers, is an effective
method to help students construct rationales, using prior knowledge. The main relevance of this is the ability that
students develop to apply this knowledge to make decisions and overcome challenges in real-life settings. By using
video analysis and a qualitative evaluation of transcripts, this study collected evidence of how the interaction of a
student with a teacher, helped the former use prior knowledge to answer questions about STEM related issues.
Introduction and Purpose
The interaction between students and teachers in learning settings can be a determining factor in the performance and
motivation of students. This interaction can not only provide feedback, but it can also guide students in the right
direction and help them find solutions to problems, based on information previously obtained. The purpose of this study
is to analyze how teachers and students can interact effectively in order to help students construct accurate rationales.
The analysis of dialogue between a student and a teacher can provide information about this process and it can offer
guidance to teachers who are actively seeking tools and methods to assist students in the process of constructing
knowledge and applying it to real-life scenarios. This study uses video in an effort to collect data about how guiding
questions and teacher feedback can be an effective strategy in the classroom.
Method
Videos enhance different methodologies, so they can be considered a complex assessment tool (Derry et al., 2010). For
this study, a video piece was selected and its corresponding transcript (Figure 2) was picked. The lines of the transcript
were numbered to facilitate the sharing of the transcript among all team members. All members coded the transcript and
then shared what they had coded. The codes were discussed by all members to come to a codebook upon which all
researchers agreed (Figure 1). Kurasaki states in her paper “Intercoder reliability is a measure of agreement between
multiple coders about how they apply codes to the data” (pg. 179).
Codebook Development
Participating researchers were tasked to code pre-collected and pre-transcribed video transcripts. The planned coding
method was to be of the a priori method using a codebook developed by Hsu and Roth (citation).While coding, a
collaborative decision was made to shift the coding method to a grounded theory approach as the codes in the Hsu and
Roth codebooks were not pertinent. Codes were individually developed and then negotiated by the research team to
develop the final codebook. See the finalized codebook in Figure 1.
Data Analysis
After the finalization of the codebook, researchers utilized the codes in order to interpret the interactions between
students and facilitators, and students and other students, in the video. By coding each piece of the interaction,
researchers uncovered relationships among specific types of teacher communications and the student responses that
these types of communications elicited.
Results and Findings
Confirming questions elicit simple responses from students. Explanatory questions require students to produce slightly
longer, yet still simple responses. For example,
Teacher: Ok so what was your purpose in using the foam and the cotton?
Girl left: Yeah I think they’re… cause the foam is an insulator, and won’t like…
Guiding questions lead students to being able to construct more elaborate responses. Open response questions
lead students to think and respond with more elaborate answers. These open response questions also gave students the
opportunity to reflect on group dynamics. The interactions displayed in the video clearly indicate that students learn not
only from the teacher or facilitator, but from each other. For example,
Teacher: Good deal . Is there anything else you want to say about it?
Girl left: We put way too much tape on.
Teacher: Ok so you think maybe, maybe the next time you’re not, you’re gonna try to 41 do it with not as much tape?
Girl left: Yes. And it’s gonna be hard to convince Jeff that
Uncertain or incomplete responses from the students signify to the teacher that more help, here, in the form of
a guiding question is needed to clarify the question and scaffold response generation. For example,
Teacher: Ok. Um, what else did you, did you have any insulation on the inside?
Girl center: Um…
Teacher: What did you all use on the inside?
From this short interaction analyzed here, it is clear that the type of teacher or facilitator questions directly
influences the student responses. Similarly, student responses can signal to the teacher that additional guidance may be
required in order to help the student formulate accurate rationales.
Limitations
Perhaps the most significant limitations of this analysis is in the approaches used to code the transcript. A priori method
was initially planned, but the lens of this method restricted the analysis. The pre-established codes did not fit the
research question or the transcription data. Grounded theory was then used to code. Although grounded theory allowed
us to produce codes from the raw data, it still has its flaws. The grounded theory approach introduces research bias. An
effort was made to minimize this bias by using intercoder reliability, while creating and finalizing the codebook
(Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2008; Fonteyn, Vettese, Lancaster, & Bauer-Wu, 2008).
Discussion and Conclusion
From a constructivist point of view, the interaction of students and teachers can help students gain a wider
understanding of concepts and ideas, as they apply them to real-life scenarios. Using the right type of question can help
students reflect on their prior knowledge and build mental models that could be possible solutions to challenges and
problems. It is beneficial for students to be able to address problems and gaps using the information they acquire in the
classroom, and for that purpose, teachers should be prepared to ask questions that go beyond factual knowledge, but
that encourage students to apply and judge specific situations. This study pointed out the importance of teachers
knowing how to determine adequate paces to reveal information, while exhausting methods such as probing and
reaffirmation. Future research lines could focus on a peer-mentoring or multidisciplinary probing method, in which
students with more experience or from a different background could help other students construct on knowledge and
apply it to specific scenarios.
Figure 1: Codebook
Type of Code
Code
Definition of Code
Example
Explanatory Questions
requires explanation, e.g.,
how an artifact was
constructed
Line 20 “...did you have any
insulation on the inside?”
Line 24
“What did you all use on the
inside?”
Guiding Questions
Searches for more
information of “why”
Line 28 “Ok so what was
your purpose in using the
foam and the cotton?”
Affirming Statement
repeats student response
with indication of being
correct (or somewhat)
correct
Line 11 “Ok so maybe it
traps some of the heat and
actually keeps it in.”
Confirming Question
restates student response
as a question to confirm
student response
Line 16 “Ok so there’s
aluminum on the floor?”
Open Response Question
questions posed that do
not involve a single answer
or correct answer
Line 36 “Is there anything
else you want to say about
it?”
Simple
response/statement
response with minimal
words
Line 18 “Yes.”
elaborated
response/statement
response includes a
thought and is more than
just a few words
Lines 8 & 9
“Um… even though I wasn’t
if I was here when they made
the houses, I would have not
of put so many layers cause
then it probably keeps more
heat into the…”
Group dynamics
response alludes to the
interactions occurring
among student groups
Line 8: ”Um...even though I
wasn’t if I was here when
they made the houses”
Unsure/Incomplete
response/statement
student is uncertain of how
to respond...or unable to
form a complete response
Line 22
“Um…”
Teacher Communication
Student Responses
Figure 2: Transcript
1 Eastern Presentation Video 100_0102
2
3 Girl left: Um… we put mylar on the outside cause it reflects light, which, light has heat in it,
4 so we don’t want heat in.
5
6 Teacher: Ok
7
8 Girl center: Um… even though I wasn’t if I was here when they made the houses, I would
9 have not of put so many layers cause then it probably keeps more heat into the…
10
11 Teacher: Ok so maybe it traps some of the heat and actually keeps it in. What’s on the
12 inside of the house?
13
14 Girl center: Aluminum… couldn’t really remember and then aluminum foil.
15
16 Teacher: Ok so there’s aluminum on the floor?
17
18 Girl (center?): Yes.
19
20 Teacher: Ok. Um, what else did you, did you have any insulation on the inside?
21
22 Girl center: Um…
23
24 Teacher: What did you all use on the inside?
25
26 Girl center: Foam and the cotton… cotton
27
28 Teacher: Ok so what was your purpose in using the foam and the cotton?
29
30 Girl left: Yeah I think they’re… cause the foam is an insulator, and won’t like…
31
32 Teacher: Right, you’re trying to keep the heat where?
33
34 Girl left: We’re trying to keep the heat out and the cold in.
35
36 Teacher: Good deal . Is there anything else you want to say about it?
37
38 Girl left: We put way too much tape on.
39
40 Teacher: Ok so you think maybe, maybe the next time you’re not, you’re gonna try to 41 do it with not as
much tape?
42
43 Girl left: Yes. And it’s gonna be hard to convince Jeff that
44
45 Teacher: Ok, is that it?
46
47 Girl center: Yes
References
Fereday, J., & Muir-Cochrane, E. (2008). Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: A hybrid approach of inductive
and deductive coding and theme development. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(1), 80-92.
Fonteyn, M. E., Vettese, M., Lancaster, D. R., & Bauer-Wu, S. (2008). Developing a codebook to guide content
analysis of expressive writing transcripts. Applied Nursing Research, 21(3), 165-168.
Hsu & Roth (2012). Codebook. Unpublished codebook.
Kurasaki, K. S. (2000). Intercoder reliability for validating conclusions drawn from open-ended interview data. Field
Methods, 12(3), 179-194.
Derry et al., (2010). Conducting video research in the learning sciences: Guidance on selection, analysis, technology,
and ethics. Journal of the Learning Sciences 19(1), 3-53.
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