This study adds to the literature on the persisting gender gap in STEM by examining the participation trends of women and men undergraduate students in the physics classroom. Specifically, this study builds on the existing literature of proportions in group interaction originally theorized by Kanter (1977) and investigates the turn-taking behaviors of women and men in classes that differ in their relative levels of gender representation. This study posed four hypotheses: That women will average less oral participation in the physics classroom than men, that more highly skewed classes will result in greater differences in men's and women's participation, that there will be an observable tipping point in women's participation, and that women's average participation will go up with the proportion of women in the classroom. These hypotheses were tested in 10 physics classrooms over the course of one class period each. The student-initiated turns during these class periods were coded by individual turn-taker. These data were analyzed to determine differences between men and women students' turn-taking behaviors in the physics classroom in relation to the proportion of women and men in the classroom. Findings indicate that women did average less participation than men in the physics classroom. However, the data do not point to a consistent relationship between increases in proportions of women in the physics class and increases in women's participation in the class. / Master of Science / This study looked to understand the differences in women's and men's in-class volunteered participation in the college physics classroom. Specifically, this study builds on the existing literature on the effects of group gender proportion in interaction, or how the proportion of women to men in a group shapes women's interactions, originally developed by Kanter (1977) and investigates the turn-taking behaviors, or how speech in conversation is initiated, of women and men in classes that differ in their gender compositions. This study had four hypotheses: 1) That women will have less volunteered participation in the physics classroom than men 2) That more highly skewed classes, or classes with high proportions of men and low proportions of women, will result in greater differences in men's and women's participation 3) That there will be an observable tipping point, a point when an increase in women in the classroom will cause an increase in women's participation 4) That women's participation will go up with the number of women in the classroom. These hypotheses were tested in 10 physics classrooms over the course of one class period each. The voluntary, student-initiated participation during these class periods were looked at by individual student. The information gathered was analyzed to understand if there were differences between men and women students' amount of participation in the physics classroom in relation to the composition of women and men in the classroom. The study found that women did average less participation than men in the physics classroom. However, the information gathered did not point to a relationship between the increases in the proportion of women in the physics class and increases in women's participation in the class.

Collaboration technologies are difficult to design due to the complex myr-iad of social, cognitive, and communicative aspects of group interactions. New interaction technologies like multitouch sharable interfaces, such asdigital tabletops, have lead to a renewed interest in designing collaborativetechnologies. This thesis focuses on turn-taking protocols as a coordinat-ing mechanism during collaborative work with digital tabletops. The goalwas to develop new conceptual designs and interactive mechanisms to sup-port face-to-face collaborations of small groups. Inspired by ethnographicalstudies of collaborative work and theories in distributed cognition and re-lated theories of language and action a model of collaborative turn-takingwas developed. Moreover, the thesis presents five design concepts and in-teraction components for the digital tabletop that exemplifies the differentproperties of the model.

This study is a small portion of a larger work examining the effects of low dosage robot use in interactive and social engagement therapy for children with autism. The purpose of this study was to investigate the participation of the subjects during song activities. Four children were used as participants, each receiving a total of 20 play-based treatment sessions targeting engagement and social interaction. The clinician incorporated the robot into these treatment sessions for 10 minute long segments within a 50 minute session. The current study analyzed these 10 minute segments with the robot, coding turn-taking behaviors. Results indicated that, at least for a time, the robot facilitated improvement in these behaviors for two of the four children. The other two children demonstrated no improvements. These results are discussed, and the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research are examined.

No description available.

L’objectif de cette thèse est de savoir si au delà d’une préférence linguistique et sociale pour leur langue natale et leurs usagers, les bébés de moins de 6 mois s’impliquent dans les rythmes et opportunités dialogiques des langues. Nous avons choisi d’étudier les comportements communicatifs du bébé âgé de 4-5 mois car cet âge représente une période charnière pour l’intégration de la compétence communicative. D’une part, le « turn-taking » est encore une forme prédominante d’interaction et d’autre part, les bébés de cet âge s’orientent encore principalement vers les partenaires sociaux plutôt qu’exclusivement vers les objets. Cette période est souvent considérée comme celle qui précède l’enculturation ou l’apprentissage culturel. Pourtant, dès 5 mois, le bébé se comporte différemment face à un interlocuteur de langue natale et de langue étrangère et face à un interlocuteur familier et nouveau. Cette thèse comporte 3 études visant à mieux comprendre l’engagement social du nourrisson dans des situations de communication réelle et habituelle et de communication potentielle. La première étude porte sur les différences dans l’organisation du turn-taking vocal entre les contextes français et brésilien. La seconde étude a pour objectif de mettre en lumière les différentes modalités que le bébé peut utiliser lors du turn-taking, au cours des pauses entre les énoncés maternels. Dans la 3ème étude, la seule étude expérimentale, nous avons cherché à savoir si un bébé français aurait des attentes différentes lorsqu’il était face à une interlocutrice parlant le français par rapport à une interlocutrice parlant une langue étrangère (brésilienne en l’occurrence). Dans son ensemble, cette thèse constitue également un plaidoyer pour une approche intégrative de la communication chez les bébés, s’éloignant d’une vision dualiste dans laquelle on sépare le corps de la pensée, le familier du nouveau et l’inné de l’acquis pour aller vers une vision plus holistique de l’humain. / The main objective of this thesis is to find out whether, beyond linguistic and social preferences for their native language and its users, infants younger than 6 months become involved with the rhythms and dialogical opportunities of speech. We chose to study the communicative behavior of infants aged 4 to 5 months because this constitutes a pivotal period for the integration of communicative competence. On the one hand, turn-taking is still a predominant type of organization in social interaction, and on the other hand, infants at this age are still more interested in social partners than in solitary object exploration. Furthermore, this period is usually thought to precede enculturation or the possibility of cultural learning. Yet, by 5 months, infants behave differently with a native language speaker than with a foreign language speaker and with a familiar person than with a stranger. This thesis includes 3 studies aimed at gaining insight into the social engagement of infants in situations of real and potential communication with social partners. The first study focuses on differences in vocal turn-taking organization between Brazilian and French cultural contexts. The second study’s aim is to shed light on the various expressive modalities infants use responsively in both cultural contexts during pauses between maternal utterances. In the third study, which is experimental, we wanted to know whether a French infant would have different expectations when faced with a French-speaking interlocutor compared with an interlocutor speaking a foreign language (Brazilian in this case). Overall, this thesis also makes a case for a more integrative approach to the study of infant communication, away from a dualist vision separating the body from thought, familiarity from novelty and innate from learned behavior and moving towards a more holistic perspective on humans beings.

Autour du deuxième mois, le bébé acquiert une nouvelle compétence vocale qui est associée à une capacité à s’engager dans des échanges vocaux caractérisés par une alternance entre les 2 partenaires. Cependant, l’émergence des compétences communicatives du bébé dans la période néonatale reste méconnue. Dans la présente recherche, nous souhaitons explorer la capacité de communication du nouveau-né, à travers l’étude de l’interaction vocale avec sa mère. Quinze mères et leur nouveau-né nés à terme ont été enregistrés à la maternité lors d’un moment d’interaction à 2 à 4 jours de vie. Les enregistrements ont été analysés selon 3 angles de vue : celui du discours de la mère, celui de l'organisation temporelle des vocalisations des 2 partenaires, et celui de la qualité des vocalisations du nouveau-né. Nos résultats suggèrent que la mère s’accorde à l’état d’éveil de son nouveau-né et le considère comme un partenaire à part entière dans l’échange. De plus, l'interaction vocale est composée de séquences de prise de tour reposant sur une participation vocale active du nouveau-né. Une fenêtre temporelle de 1 seconde semble être la fenêtre appropriée pour apprécier la contingence sociale dans la période néonatale. De même, la durée de la vocalisation semble être le paramètre sur lequel les mères se basent pour percevoir l’intention communicative dans les vocalisations du nouveau-né. L’état d’éveil 5 a un statut particulier dans la production de vocalisations du nouveau-né. Dans son ensemble, cette recherche suggère que le nouveau-né communique de manière intentionnelle, et que les états d’éveil jouent un rôle important dans la communication dans la période néonatale. / Around the second month of life, infants have the ability to partake in vocal interactions characterized by turn-taking sequences, where each partner takes turns. Little is known however, on the emergence of the ability to partake in social interaction in the neonatal period. In the present research, we wish to explore this ability by studying the vocal interaction between the mother and her newborn infant. Fifteen mothers and their newborns were recorded in a face-to-face interaction when the newborns were 2 to 4 days old. The recordings were analyzed from 3 different angles: the content of the mother’s speech addressed to her newborn, the temporal organization of the mother and newborn vocalizations, and the acoustic qualities of the newborn vocalizations. Our results suggest that the mothers attune the content of their speech to the newborns’ behavioral sates, and seem to consider their newborn as a partner in the interaction. Moreover, the vocal interaction is characterized by turn-taking sequences, which rely on the active vocal participation of the newborn. A 1-second window seems be the correct window to appreciate social contingency in the neonatal period. Furthermore, duration of the vocalization seems to be the feature upon which mothers rely to perceive communicative intent in the newborn non-cry vocalizations. Behavioral state 5 appears to have a particular status in the production of non-cry vocalizations. As a whole, this research suggests that the newborn communicates intentionally, and the behavioral states play in important role in communication during the neonatal period.

This study aims to explore power asymmetry in the organisation of teacher-student interaction by looking at turn-taking systems and the restriction of participants. This is achieved by combining the frameworks institutional discourse, conversation analysis (CA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA) and by looking at sequences of teacher-student interactions at seminars. The study encompasses analyses of classroom discourse at university level and uses data culled from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, MICASE. These data are analysed in relation to turn-taking systems and power asymmetry (i) to explore how teachers organise their classroom talk in terms of the allocation of turns, sanctions and control over the discourse and (ii) to determine to what extent teacher-student interactions show signs of power asymmetry. The results show that the teachers control the classroom discourse in a number of ways. Firstly, the analysis shows that the participatory roles of “teacher” and “student” have different claims to power and that these roles are more or less restricted by the design of the turn-taking system in place. Secondly, the teachers are found to organise the discourse in turn-taking systems that have implicit rules. Thirdly, the teachers not only have greater participation rights, but also greater control over the students’ participation rights, as witnessed by the fact that the students get disciplined if they break the rules of the system.

No description available.

<p>Reading and understanding literature does not necessarily have to be an individual act. The aim of this essay is to investigate what happens when six students read a text by Kazuo Ishiguro A Family Supper and then discuss it in a communicative situation. The essay bases its ideas on the sociocultural theory and the reader-response theory. The sociocultural perspective argues that people develop and progress during social interaction, moreover by communicating with other people and by being inspired and subsequently educated through taking part in different social contexts. My idea with this essay is to observe a literary discussion in a group. The observation emphasizes both the individual contribution to the literary discussion and the function of the group. By analyzing the participation of the individual students, I reached the conclusion that the students deal with literature in many different ways. Some focus only on the text and the plot, others discuss social issues in connection to the text and some only respond to the others’ arguments. When studying the group, I looked at the balance in the group, the turn taking between the members and the level of participation. The reader-response theory bases its idea on the reader and the text and the fact that they are connected in a mutual transaction. Every reader brings his or her experiences to the understanding of the text and thereby a text can have multiple alternative interpretations considering the amount of readers. The analysis section in this essay consists of several parts, such as an individual reflection, a group discussion and an individual evaluation.</p>

The National Agency for Education (Skolverket) and The Swedish National Curriculum stated that equality between female and male students is important. The present study investigates students in the subject English in Swedish upper secondary school and municipal school for adult education from the perspective of gender dominance in English conversation with a teacher present, with the focus on turn-taking. Two separate observations were made in three classes in adult education and two classes in upper secondary school. The research questions of this investigation are; which gender dominates the on-going conversation in English with a teacher present, how the turns were allocated, given or taken, and if the gender patterns differ between a municipal school for adults and an upper secondary school. The potential impact of the teacher's sex on the patterns of domination is also taken into consideration. Female dominance as well as male dominance is revealed in the result of the investigated classes' gender patterns. The results also reveal that the teacher's sex could have an impact on the patterns of domination.