Mixing methods for analysing classroom dialogue: coding and beyond

Researchers aspire to capture various aspects of dialogue emerging in classroom interactions using systematic analyses. Recent years have seen increasing demand for ‘mixed methods’ approaches that offer more information. These approaches build on converging theoretical clarity and understandings, technological tools and better communication among scholars interested in classroom discussions. In this chapter, we showcase several different ways of mixing methods and enriching the information from classroom observations. The first is combining analytic tools to capture and integrate qualitative and quantitative data, and it suggests using network models to interpret the results of dialogue coding. The second suggests examining more than one grain size of analytic unit (e.g., turn, episode and lesson), or coding transcribed interaction in a top-down or bottom-up manner or both. The third approach suggests synthesising across different frameworks of analysis, to understand disciplinary and multimodal dialogues. Sociocultural discourse analysis and epistemic network analysis illustrate multiple approaches.