Teacher-Student Dialogue in Synchronous Videoconferencing Environments: A Design-Based Research Study
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, videoconferencing (VC) as a teaching tool has been extensively used among numerous educational institutions across the world as it enables real-time video communication between teachers and students. Despite VC’s multiple potential features that can promote engaging and collaborative learning, there is an obvious lack of research on the live interactions in VC-mediated learning contexts. In an effort to fill this gap, this PhD project explored the technical affordances of VC to support learning through dialogue as well as the keys factors of influence on dialogic practices in VC lessons, using a mixed methods approach within a participatory Design-Based Research (DBR) framework. Two secondary science teachers (one in the UK and one in Mexico) took part as co-investigators and co-developed localised solutions to enhance their dialogic practices along with the researcher. Data from 10 video-recorded VC lessons were analysed using Tech-SEDA (the Technology version of the Scheme for Educational Dialogue Analysis), critical incident analysis, and significant episode analysis using the ELAN software. Teacher and student surveys were conducted, and data represented in the form of charts and thematically analysed. Pre-lesson and post-lesson interviews, and stimulated recall interviews were carried out with teachers and students and thematically coded. This research found that VC may offer a unique educational environment that significantly shapes teacher-student dialogue. VC can not only support multiple modes of communication (e.g., chat, annotations, emojis), thereby enriching the learning experience, but also enable students to customise their privacy levels and integrate additional applications (e.g., Nearpod) alongside inherent functionalities, enhancing inclusivity and the depth of dialogue within VC settings. These findings provide insights into the various ways in which teachers can promote engaging, critical, and collaborative learning through dialogue in VC-mediated contexts as well as how the teacher professional development (TPD) model of this study can impact dialogic practices in VC learning environments. Although the local contexts of the participants are not representative of all schools, the results of this DBR study may offer valuable theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological implications that can, with some adjustments, be applied to many similar VC-mediated learning contexts worldwide – with the emerging trend towards using VC as a key tool for remote and online education.
educational dialogue, multimodal learning, online learning, teacher professional development, videoconferencing
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