Collaboratively pursuing student uptake of feedback through storytelling: a conversation analytic study of interaction in team doctoral supervision

4.1 The research methodology

The present study adopts CA, which is an empirical and data-driven research approach that focusses on examining the interactional resources that social members use to construct and interpret social actions (Have 2007; Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008). CA is predicate on the assumption that social members share the same methods and procedures of producing and understanding social actions. It is empirical in the sense that it allows readers to validate analysis. This is possible because in any turn of talk, participants display to each other, and hence to analysts and readers, their understanding of what is going on in the previous turn (Have 2007; Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008).

CA is data-driven in that analysts start by considering conversational data with “unmotivated looking” rather than employing any particular theoretical lens, which allows uncovering social practices as they actually occur. The task of an analyst is to discover and describe the singularity as well as the regularities of interactional practices and underlying social phenomena. The regularity of interactional practices can be determined by examining participants’ endogenous orientations. For example, with storytelling, CA analysts do not start with assumptions on how stories should be structured but instead demonstrate how participants orient to how the telling of a story might begin, develop and close (e.g., Goodwin 1984; Sidnell 2006; Ta 2021, 2023). Analysts can establish that a story is upcoming or in the process of closing by investigating how both tellers and recipients regularly orient to it in practice. A story begins when tellers offer to tell a story and recipients align as listeners; or vice versa when recipients make a request and tellers accept to tell a story. If recipients do not align as listeners to a multi-unit turn (which is one of the key features of storytelling as social action), there is no storytelling. Similarly, a story can be shown to be moving towards closure when tellers bid for a close and recipients align with this projected closure. On the other hand, if recipients do not orient to it as closing, tellers may add increments, thereby extending the storytelling. This approach to analysis of story structure makes CA distinctive from traditional linguistic approach, where story structure is generalised out of context (e.g., Labov and Waletzky 1967; Norrick 2005).

With regards to examining functions of storytelling, CA analysts do not start with pre-determined functions but instead examine the sequential context by which storytelling is launched and the ways in which participants link the storytelling to broader activities within which it is embedded. In this way, CA analysts can uncover how a storytelling works within the sequential context of its occurrence. In this respect, CA is distinctive from narrative research which is predicated on the assumption that stories are the means for people to make sense of lived experiences and to construct identities. In narrative research approaches, stories are used as researchers’ resource for understanding how social worlds work (Bamberg 2007; Bamberg and Georgakopoulou 2008). In contrast, in CA storytelling is viewed as a participant resource for constructing social actions.

4.2 The research context

This study is a part of a larger study which involves four doctoral students and six supervisors from the Faculty of Education of an Australian university. The students were all completing a doctorate by research degree, commonly known as the PhD. At the time when the data collection started (2016), the university introduced the requirement of completing 120 h of coursework, but assessments of coursework were not required. To be considered for completion of the doctorate program, full-time students had to pass three milestones within three years with each milestone occurring at the end of each 12 month period.

When the data were collected, the students were in their first year and working towards the confirmation milestone. For completion of this milestone, they had to submit a 10,000-word research proposal and make an oral presentation for 20 min in front of a panel consisting of a chair and two members. The supervisors could attend the session but they were not allowed to defend the students, which was a new requirement added at the same time as the introduction of the coursework requirement.

Students were required to work under the supervision of at least two academics, with one acting as a principal supervisor, who had a greater percentage of the supervision responsibility, and with the others referred to as associate supervisors. Each student in this study had two supervisors. They sometimes had meetings with one supervisor and sometimes with both supervisors.

4.3 The storytelling data corpus

Ethics approval was obtained from the university where the data were collected. The data collection began after the ethics approval had been granted. To avoid coercion, students were recruited before the recruitment of supervisors. A camera and a voice recorder (for back-up) were set up in the supervisory offices at the beginning of each meeting. The researcher left the site after finishing setting up the recording equipment.

In total, 25 supervision meetings were video-recorded (equivalent to 25.5 h). Fifteen meetings are triadic. With regards to storytelling data, 57 storytelling sequences were produced in the environment of feedback and advice. Thirty-four out of 57 stories were produced in triadic supervision meetings. The data was transcribed using Jeffersonian transcription system with two adaptations (Jefferson 2004). First, bold font is used for all interaction, to distinguish from descriptions of embodied actions which are in normal font; second, curly brackets are used to mark the beginning of the overlap between talk and embodied actions (Filipi 2009). It is important to include embodied actions and prosodic features in the transcriptions of the data because they are important resources for speakers to design their turns (Mondada 2013).

5.1 Telling a first story in pursuit of advice uptake

In what follows, we examine extract 1a, which illustrates how supervisors can co-construct advice through launching a story to exemplify the advice initiated by their co-supervisors. This extract takes place in the second meeting between Bella and her two supervisors, Lisa and Ras. Note that Bella was an international student who had enrolled two months before she arrived at the university in person. Due to the requirement of her scholarship, she had to enrol within a certain time frame, but for personal reasons she was unable to leave her home country before the due date.

Prior to extract 1a, Lisa inquired about Bella’s local address, prior to problematising it. Bella presented an opinion that the bus journey from her accommodation to university was short and convenient; however, Lisa claimed that the bus journey was too short for Bella to do some reading. We join their conversation at a point where Lisa starts to topicalise another issue, which is about coming to university at the weekend. Note that before the talk about the bus journey, when Lisa asked if Bella was able to do some reading at home, Bella said she could not because she found it difficult to concentrate on studying at home.

Extract 1a

Bella 2 – You can come at the weekend

Setting: Lisa, Ras, and Bell are sitting at a small round table in Ras’s office. Ras is in the middle of the camera screen, and at the far side of the table; Lisa is on the right, Bella is on the left.

Lisa’s utterance in lines 1–2 is prefaced with “but the other issue…”, which suggests it is a part of an on-going argument that Lisa is building: there are issues with Bella’s progress. After the preface, Lisa advises Bella to come to work on campus at the weekend through a declarative affirmative formulation that is produced with a rising intonation. While the declarative affirmative formulation indicates a strong normativity of the advice, the rising intonation works to mobilize Bella’s response (Stivers and Rossano 2010).

Bella does not show strong uptake of this advice, which is indicated through her m:m produced in slightly rising intonation (line 4). At this point, in line 5, Ras takes a turn to mobilize a more appropriate response by adding an increment to the previous advice constructed by Lisa. Although Lisa’s advice formulation does not explicitly specify a location, this information can be inferred from the context where the participants are talking about coming to campus. Therefore Ras’s increment in line 5 works to secure a response from Bella rather than clarifying the location.

Bella’s response in line 6 has a dispreferred turn design: it is prefaced with u:m, which functions to delay the production of her disagreement with the advice (Pomerantz 1984), and it is ended with laughter, which works to remedy the disagreement.

Lisa’s response to Bella between lines 7 and 9 also has a dispreferred turn design: the agreement component being brought forward and the disagreement component delayed. Lisa first accepts Bella’s position through her okay, and acknowledges that the advised action (i.e. coming to campus at the weekend) is not necessary at the moment (lines 8–9). Next, she makes a claim about its necessity in the future (line 9). This turn design works to maximize affiliation and simultaneously allows Lisa to pursue the advice, and seek Bella’s acceptance.

At this point, Ras displays strong agreement with Lisa indicated by the early start of his turn (line 11) and the repetition of oh yes (line 12), both produced in emphatic intonation. In line 13, he produces an increment prefaced with and, which works as an anticipatory completion of the turn that Lisa produced in line 9. Note this turn construction unit is delivered fluently, and does not show any trouble with word-search. Therefore, Ras’s contribution in line 13 does not work to assist Lisa in articulating the feedback/advice as other types of anticipatory completion (see Ta 2023), but rather, works to secure Bella’s acceptance of the advice in progress by adding details that intensify and dramatize the necessity of working hard. Together Lisa and Ras have put forward the idea that there are times Bella has to work at the weekend and stay on campus late.

In line 16, Ras produces a self-initiated self-repair, which is prefaced with I mean. Here by adding a condition (if you’re a late day person), Ras reduces the normativity of the advice in progress: staying late is not something Bella has to do if she is not a late day person. Immediately after this, he tells about his experience of staying late until early morning (lines 18–19) and another student’s experience of coming to office at 5 am and not staying after 5 pm (lines 22–25). After telling stories about two working styles (staying late and coming early), Ras advises Bella to choose a style that suits her (line 26). At this point, Bella again does not show strong uptake of the advice, indicated by her minimal response token m:m produced with slightly rising intonation.

In the absence of Bella’s strong uptake, Lisa prompts Ras to tell more about his experience by producing a declarative affirmative formulation with rising intonation (line 28). In response, Ras provides details about his experience of managing his study time and space (starting from line 30).

In the above extract, we have seen how Ras, the second-speaking supervisor, contributed to co-constructing the advice about coming to campus on the weekend and at night. He first displayed strong agreement with Lisa before upgrading the advice, and then launching into a storytelling to illustrate the advice under delivery.

5.2 Telling a second story in pursuit of student uptake

The following extract illustrates a second way co-supervisors can collaborate in feedback and advice activities, that is through producing second storytelling. This extract is a continuation of the same advice sequence as examined above. In this extract, we will examine a second storytelling produced by Lisa, which is followed by a third storytelling produced by Ras. Analysis takes up at the point when Ras moves to closing his storytelling (line 53).

Extract 1b

Bella 2 – You can come at the weekend

Between lines 30 and 52, Ras tells about his own and his friends’ experiences with working on campus (data not shown). In line 53, Ras produces an assessment prefaced with so. The use of assessment and so both suggest the story is about to close. Assessing a state of affair is found to be a canonical way to close a storytelling (Jefferson 1978) while so is found to mark a resolution or summary of the preceding the extended turn of talk in a study on academic presentation (Rendle-Short 2003).

At story closing, recipients are normatively expected to display affiliation with the stance that the teller displays throughout the telling (Stivers 2008). Here in extract 1b, we can see that Lisa briefly displays her agreement with Ras through yeh produced in falling intonation (line 54). However, Bella’s mm is produced in a soft voice, with slightly rising intonation contour (line 55). Her head movement is gentle and slow, which does not look like a firm and strong agreement. At this point, in line 56 Ras produces an increment to secure a more appropriate response. In line 58, Bella produces another mm with falling intonation, and gazes away from Ras, suggesting she is not about to produce further talk. Ras also indicates that he is not about to produce further talk through his yeh, which is produced in falling intonation.

After a micro pause of 0.3 s, Lisa takes up the speakership and tells a second story, which is about her experience of coming to campus and her preference for writing on campus and reading at home (lines 61–67). Her talk in line 68 is produced in fast speed and low volume suggesting it is a quick wrap-up of the story; next she rushes through to give advice about working patterns in lines 70 and 71. Here we see a modification of the earlier advice: “come at the weekend” (lines 1–2, extract 1a) has been modified to “talk to people about working patterns” (lines 61–67). This modification to some extent succeeds in securing a more proper response from Bella: her response has changed from disaffiliative to more affiliative, which is indicated through the nod in line 72.

However, Bella’s nod is not treated as adequate by Ras who launches another storytelling in line 73. Here he produces a do you remember construction to establish shared knowledge with Lisa regarding a common work space for doctoral students, which used to be known as LMR and now is named as TLS. Establishing and appealing to shared knowledge with recipients is a common way to open a storytelling, which works to build mutual understanding (Ta 2021).

In the above extract, Ras and Lisa collaboratively pursued Bella’s acceptance of advice. When Bella did not show strong uptake at the end of Ras’s storytelling, Lisa launched a second storytelling and made it relevant to Ras’s story. Then at the end of Lisa’s storytelling, when Bella’s response was still minimal, Ras launched another storytelling.

5.3 Co-shaping how the story should be interpreted at story completion

The above two extracts demonstrate how storytelling is produced as a component of advice activities, and used as a resource for co-constructing the advice in progress. In what follows, we specifically examine story-closing episodes to see how second-speaking supervisors co-shape the interpretations of the stories initiated by first-speaking supervisors.

Extract 2 takes place at the beginning of the same meeting between Bella and her two supervisors which was examined in previous sections. To summarise what happened before the extract: Bella reported that she was unable to come up with a list of headings for her literature review, a task that Lisa had asked her to do in the previous meeting. Lisa responded that this would not be a problem, adding that a literature review is a work in progress. This prompted a story about a student whose research topic evolved into a different one by the end of her candidature. We join their conversation when Lisa is describing the consequences of the protagonist’s topic change (lines 1–2).

Extract 2

Bella 2 – So it’s provisional

In lines 1–2, Lisa describes the need for the protagonist to conduct a new literature review chapter as a consequence of the change or development in her research. Her turn is prefaced with so, which suggests that a resolution of the story is forthcoming. At this point, Ras produces increments to the story (lines 3 and 6) that fit semantically and grammatically with Lisa’s prior turn, making them work like incremented components of the on-going story. Through his emphatic intonation, Ras is emphasizing the action of reading new literature (line 3), and the stage where topic changes may occur (line 6) (i.e., one’s research topic can be reformulated after data collection and based on reading new literature).

Ras’s utterances in lines 3 and 6 do not work to display his candidate understanding (Antaki 2012) of Lisa’s story; he does not gaze at Lisa, which suggests he is not mobilising Lisa’s confirmation of his understanding. Instead, he gazes at Bella and concurrently points his hand toward Bella, which works to solicit her responses. Bella responds with a stretched m:m twice (lines 5 and 7), produced with falling intonation, which displays her acknowledgement of the point being made. Ras’s multimodal actions (i.e. gazing and pointing at Bella in lines 3 and 6) also show that he treats Bella as the recipient and himself as a co-teller of the story.

After acknowledging what Ras has just said through a falling yeah (line 8), Lisa provides a summary of the story between lines 9–10, prefaced with so. She elaborates what she means, and emphasizes that one’s literature review is provisional, which aligns with her earlier claim that one’s literature review is a work in progress. She then repeats her earlier assessment of Bella’s current work (line 12), and finally gives her advice (line 14).

In the above extract, the advice is produced after the generalised message of the story is made, and the student’s acknowledgement is obtained. Both supervisors work to draw out the generalised message. The supervisor, who is not the principal teller, promptly takes a turn at the story completion point by highlighting the relevant points of the story. In this way, he projects himself as a co-teller, and thereby as co-constructor of the feedback and advice being delivered.

The above analysis shows that non-teller supervisors can collaborate in storytelling by adding story increments thereby influencing how the stories should be interpreted. The practice of adding increments have been demonstrated to work to secure student acceptance of feedback and advice (Ta 2023).