TY - GEN
T1 - Math Discourse Linguistic Components (Cohesive Cues within a Math Discussion Board Discourse)
AU - Banawan, Michelle
AU - Shin, Jinnie
AU - Balyan, Renu
AU - Leite, Walter L.
AU - McNamara, Danielle S.
N1 - Funding Information:
The research reported here was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES Grant: R305C160004). Opinions, conclusions, or recommendations do not necessarily reflect the views of the IES. We also acknowledge and thank the developers of Math Nation as well as the many team members on the VLL project.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 ACM.
PY - 2022/6/1
Y1 - 2022/6/1
N2 - This study presents the results of a computational discourse analysis of discussion threads within an online Math tutoring platform. This work is theoretically motivated by prior work that established the importance of linguistic and semantic features in the discourse in mathematics education. The end goal of this study is to understand the characteristics of language that is produced and used within a discussion board for math. The discussion board corpus comprises of posts from 4,720 students, teachers, and study experts who interacted within an online teaching and learning tutoring platform for math. Linguistic profiles of the discussion board discourse were estimated using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based on Coh-Metrix linguistic features related to cohesion, language sophistication, and lexical characteristics. The PCA analysis yielded seven Math Discourse Linguistic Components, which collectively explained 49% of the variance in the dataset. Theoretical and conceptual validation of components revealed that the linguistic features align with the communication goal and the nature of mathematics. The linguistic profiles that characterized the discussion board discourse included referential cohesion, information density, instructional language, lexical variation, compare and contrast devices, explicit relations devices, and syntactic complexity. The dominance of cohesive cues within the linguistic profiles demonstrate the communication goals within the Math discourse such as elaboration, providing instruction, compare and contrast, establishing explicit relations, and presenting information. As such, these components characterize the Math Discussion Board discourse in terms of variations in cohesive and task-oriented cues within communication among students.
AB - This study presents the results of a computational discourse analysis of discussion threads within an online Math tutoring platform. This work is theoretically motivated by prior work that established the importance of linguistic and semantic features in the discourse in mathematics education. The end goal of this study is to understand the characteristics of language that is produced and used within a discussion board for math. The discussion board corpus comprises of posts from 4,720 students, teachers, and study experts who interacted within an online teaching and learning tutoring platform for math. Linguistic profiles of the discussion board discourse were estimated using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based on Coh-Metrix linguistic features related to cohesion, language sophistication, and lexical characteristics. The PCA analysis yielded seven Math Discourse Linguistic Components, which collectively explained 49% of the variance in the dataset. Theoretical and conceptual validation of components revealed that the linguistic features align with the communication goal and the nature of mathematics. The linguistic profiles that characterized the discussion board discourse included referential cohesion, information density, instructional language, lexical variation, compare and contrast devices, explicit relations devices, and syntactic complexity. The dominance of cohesive cues within the linguistic profiles demonstrate the communication goals within the Math discourse such as elaboration, providing instruction, compare and contrast, establishing explicit relations, and presenting information. As such, these components characterize the Math Discussion Board discourse in terms of variations in cohesive and task-oriented cues within communication among students.
KW - coh-metrix
KW - discussion boards
KW - mathematics language profiles
KW - online algebra learning
KW - principal component analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132150090&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85132150090&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3491140.3528320
DO - 10.1145/3491140.3528320
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85132150090
T3 - L@S 2022 - Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale
SP - 389
EP - 394
BT - L@S 2022 - Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
T2 - 9th Annual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale, L@S 2022
Y2 - 1 June 2022 through 3 June 2022
ER -