Curtis LeBaron

Learner Articulation as Interactional Achievement: Studying the Conversation of Gesture

Learner articulation, studied under a variety of names (e.g., self-explanation, self-directed, and generative summarization), has been shown to contribute to new learning. Whereas prior research has focused on measuring the effects of various forms of articulation on learning outcomes, this article focuses on how such articulation may be accomplished, moment to moment and turn by turn, in learning settings. It documents some of the ways in which participants use their bodies and, in particular, their hands while displaying what they know. It presents fine-grained analyses of 3 videotaped fragments of naturally occurring interaction among medical teachers and students participating in tutorial meetings in a problem-based learning curriculum. Within these 3 exhibits evidence was found of recipient design with regard to gesture production and recipient response with reference to its performance. Also found was evidence of gesture reuse as a mechanism for cohesion across turns at talk and as a display of mutual understanding. This article represents a preliminary step toward a more general program of research focusing on sense-making practices in learning settings. Extending an understanding of how such practices are accomplished interactionally is a crucial step toward eventually being able to give an adequate account of what makes any exemplary form of instruction effective.

What are We Missing? Usability's Indexical Ground

In this paper, we describe how usability provides the indexical ground upon which design work in a surgery is achieved. Indexical and deictic referential practices are used (1) to constitute participation frameworks and work sites in an instructional surgery and (2) to encode and manage participants’ differential access to the relevancies and background knowledge required for the achievement of a successful surgical outcome. As a site for both learning and work, the operating room afforded us the opportunity to examine how usability, which is a critical design consideration, can be used as a resource for learning in interaction. In our detailed analysis of the interaction among participants (both co-present and projected) we sought to describe a particular case of how usability was produced as a relevant consideration for surgical education in the operating room. In doing so, we demonstrate a set of members’ methods by which actors worked to establish and provide for the relevance of the anticipated needs of projected users as part of developing an understanding of their current activity.

The mystery of the missing referent: objects, procedures, and the problem of the instruction follower

An omni-relevant issue for workplace studies is how participants engaged in joint activity make sense of the objects that constitute their shared material environment. In this study we examine a surgery taped in a teaching hospital to explore how formal procedures make relevant certain sorts of objects and, at the same time, are constituted through them. We proceed by unpacking one particular strip of talk and demonstrate how its determinate sense rests upon a vernacular understanding of unfolding procedure. We treat surgical procedures as sequences of projected instructions. Competent design of technologies intended to support cooperative work must rest ultimately on an intimate understanding of that works organization. The practices of instantiating objects and followintg procedures are foundational to that organization. This paper is intended to provide method and vocabulary for studying and describing such matters.

Epistemic authority in employment interviews: Glancing, pointing, touching

Interviewers routinely orient to applicant files as they produce first pair parts (e.g. questions) that forward the business of the interview. As they do so, they make clear what they know, whether they already know it or are discovering it in the moment, whether it comes from the file in hand, and whether the applicant holds primary rights to confirm or amend that information. In these moments, participants work out issues of epistemic authority through an orchestration of multimodal behaviors, including talk, gesture, gaze, and touch. Our analysis focuses specifically on two discourse slots: when interviewers confirm specific information in side sequences; and when they gloss and assess general information while calling for an account. In the former, interviewers display minimal knowledge and secondary (deferred) epistemic authority; in the latter, they show strong knowledge and assert primary epistemic authority. This article demonstrates how epistemic authority, negotiated through embodied talk-in-interaction, contributes to how interviews unfold.

Reconsidering Common Ground

The constructs of “common ground” and “grounding” are frequently invoked in the CSCW literature as a mechanism by which participants engaged in joint activity coordinate their respective understandings of matters at hand. These constructs arise from a model of conversation developed by Herbert Clark and sometimes referred to as “contribution theory.” We describe here the basic features of this theory and attempt to apply it in analyzing a fragment of enacted interaction. The interaction was recorded during an abdominal surgery performed with the aid of an endoscopic camera. We encountered difficulties, however, in applying contribution theory as an analytic framework within this concrete setting. We found further that the notion of common ground represents a confusing metaphor rather than a useful explanatory mechanism. We conclude with a suggestion that researchers in the future seek ways of constructing descriptions of joint activity that do not rely on the troublesome notions of grounding and common ground.

Coordinating Flexible Performance During Everyday Work: An Ethnomethodological Study of Handoff Routines

Our paper examines the challenge of coordinating flexible performance during everyday work. We draw on routine dynamics and ethnomethodology to examine how intensive care unit (ICU) physicians coordinate their actions—flexibly yet intelligibly—as they handoff patients at change of shift. Through our analysis of interview and video data, we demonstrate how physicians use the sequential features of the handoff routine—i.e., the expected moves and their expected sequence—to adapt each performance of the routine to the unique needs of each patient. We show the need for ongoing coordinating despite a strongly shared ostensive pattern and we illustrate how participants use the sequential nature of the ostensive pattern of the routine as a resource for flexible performance, to manage sequential variation and the sufficiency of moves at transitions. Our findings contribute to the routine dynamics and coordination literatures by providing a more nuanced understanding of how mutual intelligibility is achieved through coordinating, whereby participants create the conditions to move forward with a common project.

Call for Papers Feature Topic: Video-Based Research Methods

For practical reasons, video technology has become irresistible as an instrument of data collection for many researchers. Recording equipment is now readily available, relatively inexpensive, and easy to use. For example, most mobile phones have the ability to create and share digital video. Many organizations are now using video as a workplace tool for public broadcast, video conferencing, quality control, internal knowledge management, training, and more. Some organizations create archives or banks of video data, which may be valuable resources for research. Similarly, public events, such as congressional hearings, may now be video recorded, providing valuable extra-organizational data. Indeed, even in experimental research laboratories, which have long included video equipment, the prevalence of video as a medium of choice within our culture has expanded the possibilities for organizational research. For organizational research methods, the empirical advantages of video data are noteworthy. Video recordings can capture behavior in real time and can then be slowed, zoomed, and replayed, enabling analysts to be careful, precise, and consistent in generating accounts of organizational activity—who did what, when, where, and how. Video recordings constitute a permanent record that others can watch and verify. Perhaps most important, video provides ontological opportunities for researchers. While social scientists have traditionally focused on discourse (talk and text), often due to technological constraints, real-time video may provide insight into issues such as:

An Introduction to Video Methods in Organizational Research

Video has become a methodological tool of choice for many researchers in social science, but video methods are relatively new to the field of organization studies. This article is an introduction to video methods. First, we situate video methods relative to other kinds of research, suggesting that video recordings and analyses can be used to replace or supplement other approaches, not only observational studies but also retrospective methods such as interviews and surveys. Second, we describe and discuss various features of video data in relation to ontological assumptions that researchers may bring to their research design. Video involves both opportunities and pitfalls for researchers, who ought to use video methods in ways that are consistent with their assumptions about the world and human activity. Third, we take a critical look at video methods by reporting progress that has been made while acknowledging gaps and work that remains to be done. Our critical considerations point repeatedly at articles in this special issue, which represent recent and important advances in video methods.