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A Toolbox for Understanding the Dynamics of Small Group Discussions

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Abstract

This work considers group discussion data, as recorded in video conferencing settings, and demonstrates the ability to use readily available computational tools to glean important information characterizing the dynamics of the group discussion. In particular, our toolbox reveals a number of important characteristics of a discussion, including who is speaking when and each participant’s relative sentiment throughout the discussion. We also identify the moments of the discussion where specific events occur, such as reading or quoting from source material or when questions are being asked, etc. Finally, we conduct a topic analysis to characterize the amount of time spent on various themes in the discussion. We then demonstrate that these tools are reasonably accurate at locating the desired content and can, in fact, provide a unique window to into the dynamics of group discussions.

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Data Availability

Due to the proprietary nature of the data and the request for anonymity of the sponsoring organization, the dataset specifically used in this research is not available publicly.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of our sponsoring organization who wishes to remain anonymous. The data used in the paper is proprietary, but we have their permission to publish the methods and tools we developed for them using their data so long as strict confidentiality measures are followed to protect proprietary information and PII.

Funding

The affiliated authors have received research support from Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information and Decision Algorithms Laboratories, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, 84602, USA

    Michael DeBuse, Dallin Clayton, Brooks Butler & Sean Warnick

  2. College of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, Electrical Engineering Building, 465, Northwestern Ave, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Brooks Butler

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Contributions

Michael DeBuse, Dallin Clayton, and Brooks Butler contributed to the study conception and design with Sean Warnick performing the role of supervision and advisor. System development, construction, and analysis were performed by Michael DeBuse, Dallin Clayton, and Brooks Butler. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Michael DeBuse, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Michael DeBuse, Dallin Clayton, Brooks Butler or Sean Warnick.

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DeBuse, M., Clayton, D., Butler, B. et al. A Toolbox for Understanding the Dynamics of Small Group Discussions. Int J Artif Intell Educ (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-023-00360-3

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