I developed the analytical method to analyse the video recordings and field notes. I viewed the data from the video recordings, and I identified Episodes of students’ epistemic interactions within this data. These Episodes of shared epistemic agency became the units of analysis. I did not analyse the data collected in the field notes in the same way as I did the recordings; instead, extracts from the field notes were used in the writing of the research to exemplify or explain information. I did not analyse the interview recordings.
The Unit of Analysis – An episode of shared epistemic agency
An Episode of shared epistemic agency is a snapshot of participants’ interactions in which the six characteristics of shared epistemic agency interplay to produce new knowledge. An Episode begins with an intention to resolve a state of unknowing and ends with the production of new knowledge formed during the knowledge-building process. In essence, an Episode consists of three distinct parts: the Intention, the knowledge building (comprising four patterns of action), and the New Knowledge.
My idea of an Episode as the unit of analysis came from Clarke’s (2001) method for analysing classroom interaction that focused on the “object of interest” (p. 36). In my study, the object of interest is shared epistemic agency. The notion of an Episode allowed me to select relevant moments from the hours of video data, and to organise it in the terms of a theory (cf. Dowling & Brown, 2010).
Selecting an Episode
Having decided on what constitutes an Episode and how to identify it, I set about rewatching all 39 hours of recordings in chronological order. While watching, I was looking for instances of an Intention expressed by the classroom participants other than myself. When I observed an Intention, I asked the following questions of the Intention in the lesson context:
- Is it epistemic, i.e., directed towards mathematics knowledge?
- Is the Intention resolved?
- Does the resolution result in new mathematics knowledge?
- Is there evidence that more than one participant is involved in stating, demonstrating, or validating the new mathematics knowledge?
- Are all the four characteristics of knowledge building – Extension, Explication, Expertise, and Mutual Relations – demonstrated by the participants?
If the answer to all five questions was yes, I had identified an Episode. Upon such an identification, I reviewed the recordings and filled in an Episode summary sheet. The summary sheet contains the details of the Episode. I selected thirty-four episodes from the recordings. I transcribed and coded each Episode.