Louca, Loucas T.

1/12/2008, Parnafes, Orit, Hammer, David, Louca, Loucas T., Sherin, Bruce L., Lee, Victor R., Krakowski, Moshe, Di Sessa, Andrea A., Edelson, Daniel C., Parnafes, Orit

This symposium addresses methodological issues in studying children's knowledge and learning processes. The class of methods discussed here looks at processes of learning in fine-grained detail, through which a theoretical framework evolves rather than is merely applied. This class of methodological orientations to studying learning processes diverges from more common ones in several important ways: 1) Attention to diverse features of the learning interaction; 2) conducting a moment-by-moment analysis, zooming in on the fine details of the studied processes; 3) rather than proving or applying a theory, the objective is to make theoretical innovations, or to develop a "humble theory." The challenge of using such techniques is that, by their nature, they do not follow a strongly delineated procedure, especially not the usual sort of coding. This symposium attempts to begin addressing the methodological issues by reflecting on several cases of data analysis.