Discussion Analysis Tool

By Dr. Allan Jeong  Home   Updates
Instructional Systems & Learning Technology
Florida State University


Description: Use the Discussion Analysis Tool (DAT) to sequentially analyze and identify patterns in event sequences, generating transitional state diagrams to map, identify, and analyze patterns observed in interaction data, processes, and/or other complex, dynamic procedural tasks. For example, the state diagrams presented above compares the sequences of actions performed by students who constructed lower versus higher quality causal maps after moving and positioning nodes on screen; adding, deleting, assigning attributes to, revising, and annotating links inserted into the map to identify the causal relationships between nodes (Shin & Jeong, 2021). Review some of the other research applications of the DAT software.

Software functions:

Main menu
Enter codes
Enter code sequences
Transitional probability matrix & output
Drawing state diagrams
Example state diagram
Tally number of replies elicited per message

Minimum Software Requirements: MS Excel with Macro security set at low or medium level

Download:   DAT.xls (434k) Excel 2006 or earlier |   DAT 1.986.xlsm for Excel 2007+

Possible features in upcoming versions:

• Compute mean number of responses elicited per message category (e.g. mean number of BUT replies per ARGument)
• Generate state diagrams with more than six nodes
• Include observed frequencies in the nodes of each state diagram
• Flag down transitional probabilities that are based on low cell frequencies with gray-colored fonts in matrix and gray-colored arrows in diagrams.

Questions?  Email Dr. Allan Jeong (ajeong@fsu.edu)

 

Main Menu

 

Define Code Sheet

 

Code Sequence Entry Sheet

 

Transitional Probability Matrix and Outputs

 

Draw Diagram Menu

 
 

State Diagram Output

Tally number of responses elicited per given message

By Allan Jeong
Florida State University
Copyright 2005-2024
All Rights Reserved
 

Recent Updates:

• 2/22/12 Added glow circles around each node to convey the number of times each particular event was observed in the data set.
  
• 2/22/12 Added function to create "historical state diagrams" so that for any given event, one can determine how often one particular event preceded the given event.
  
• 6/9/09 Automaticallly draws four node diagrams if number of codes = 4
• 6/9/09 Prompts user when a code is missing in the DefineCodes sheet when running StartSeqAnal
• 11/8/08 In the CodeSequence page, sequence numbers are automatically inserted into column B from top to bottom of the event list when no sequence numbers are entered by the user (when column B is left blank)
• 11/8/08 Fixed error in draw diagram where transitional probability of .64 is inserted in link from node 5 to node 2, and where transitional probably of .62 was inserted into link from node 5 to node 3.
• 11/8/08 When there are only four codes specified in the Draw Diagram matrix, the program now draws a four node diagram rather than a six node diagram.
• 3/28/12 Links in state diagrams are colored gray if probability is not significantly higher than expected based on z-scores