Skip to main content

Approaching Structured Debate with Quantitative Ethnography in Mind

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Advances in Quantitative Ethnography (ICQE 2021)

Abstract

Structured Debate (SD) is a constrained discourse style that is popular in many different forums. The expansion of SD to online platforms leaves many questions about addressing this type of data during analysis. Quantitative Ethnography (QE) may provide a framework for the considerations that need to be made when analyzing SD datasets. In this paper, we review the ways in which QE methods are compatible with SD and the challenges associated with applying this approach. Using data from an online SD forum, we present a narrative of decision-making throughout the analysis process. We found that QE allows for a myriad of insights to be gained from this form of data depending on the approach one takes, including insights into structures, content, and participation. This work intends to serve as a model for researchers hoping to utilize QE on SD and, more broadly, for approaching novel datasets.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://debatemap.app/.

  2. 2.

    http://www.edeb8.com/.

  3. 3.

    www.kialo.com.

References

  1. Katzenstein, G.: The debate on structured debate: toward a unified theory. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 66, 316–332 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1006/obhd.1996.0059

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Cariñanos-Ayala, S., Arrue, M., Zarandona, J., Labaka, A.: The use of structured debate as a teaching strategy among undergraduate nursing students: a systematic review Nurse Educ. Today 98, 104766 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2021.104766

  3. Healey, R.L.: The power of debate: reflections on the potential of debates for engaging students in critical thinking about controversial geographical topics. J. Geogr. High. Educ. 36, 239–257 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2011.619522

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Sridhar, D., Getoor, L., Walker, M.: Collective stance classification of posts in online debate forums. In: Proceedings of the Joint Workshop on Social Dynamics and Personal Attributes in Social Media, pp. 109–117. Association for Computational Linguistics, Baltimore, Maryland (2014). https://doi.org/10.3115/v1/W14-2715

  5. McElfresh, J.: Spirited: A Web Application for Structured Debate. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33797385

  6. McGreevy, P.D., et al.: The use of a virtual online debating platform to facilitate student discussion of potentially polarising topics. Animals (Basel). 7, 68 (2017). https://doi.org/10.3390/ani7090068

  7. Williamson Shaffer, D.: Quantitative Ethnography. Cathcart Press, Madison (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Barany, A., Shah, M., Foster, A.: Connecting curricular design and student identity change: an epistemic network analysis. In: Ruis, A.R., Lee, S.B. (eds.) ICQE 2021. CCIS, vol. 1312, pp. 155–169. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_11

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Nachtigall, V., Sung, H.: Students’ collaboration patterns in a productive failure setting: an epistemic network analysis of contrasting cases. In: Eagan, B., Misfeldt, M., Siebert-Evenstone, A. (eds.) ICQE 2019. CCIS, vol. 1112, pp. 165–176. Springer, Cham (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33232-7_14

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Hamilton, E., Hobbs, W.: Epistemic frames and political discourse modeling. In: Ruis, A.R., Lee, S.B. (eds.) ICQE 2021. CCIS, vol. 1312, pp. 32–46. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_3

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. Cho, K.-L., Jonassen, D.H.: The effects of argumentation scaffolds on argumentation and problem solving. ETR&D. 50, 5–22 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02505022

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Musselman, E.G.: Using structured debate to achieve autonomous student discussion. Hist. Teach. 37, 335–349 (2004). https://doi.org/10.2307/1555673

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Bolton, E., Calderwood, A., Christensen, N., Kafrouni, J., Drori, I.: High quality real-time structured debate generation. arXiv:2012.00209 [cs] (2020)

  14. Mitchell, R.E.: Web scraping with Python: collecting data from the modern web (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Krotov, V., Redd, L., Silva, L.: Legality and ethics of web scraping, Communications of the Association for Information Systems (forthcoming). Communications of the Association for Information Systems (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Zörgő, S., Peters, G.-J.Y.: Epistemic Network Analysis for Semi-Structured Interviews and Other Continuous Narratives: Challenges and Insights, psyarxiv.com/j6n97

  17. Saldaña, J.: The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. SAGE, Los Angeles (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Shaffer, D.W., Ruis, A.R.: How we code. In: Ruis, A.R., Lee, S.B. (eds.) ICQE 2021. CCIS, vol. 1312, pp. 62–77. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_5

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  19. Siebert-Evenstone, A.L., Arastoopour, G., Collier, W., Swiecki, Z., Ruis, A., Williamson Shaffer, D.: In search of conversational grain size: modelling semantic structure using moving Stanza windows. J. Learn. Anal. 4, 123–139 (2017). https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2017.43.7

  20. Williamson Shaffer, D., Collier, W., Ruis, A.: A tutorial on epistemic network analysis: analyzing the structure of connections in cognitive, social, and interaction data. J. Learn. Anal. 3, 9–45 (2016). https://doi.org/10.18608/jla.2016.33.3

  21. Scianna, J., Gagnon, D., Knowles, B.: Counting the game: visualizing changes in play by incorporating game events. In: Ruis, A.R., Lee, S.B. (eds.) ICQE 2021. CCIS, vol. 1312, pp. 218–231. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_15

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. Misiejuk, K., Scianna, J., Kaliisa, R., Vachuska, K., Shaffer, D.W.: Incorporating sentiment analysis with epistemic network analysis to enhance discourse analysis of Twitter data. In: Ruis, A.R., Lee, S.B. (eds.) ICQE 2021. CCIS, vol. 1312, pp. 375–389. Springer, Cham (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67788-6_26

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the International Society for Quantitative Ethnography for their work in building a community which brought the authors together for the 2nd COVID Data Challenge.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jennifer Scianna .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Scianna, J., Kaliisa, R., Boisvenue, J.J., Zörgő, S. (2022). Approaching Structured Debate with Quantitative Ethnography in Mind. In: Wasson, B., Zörgő, S. (eds) Advances in Quantitative Ethnography. ICQE 2021. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1522. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93859-8_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93859-8_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-93858-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-93859-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics