Socio-Cognitive Analysis of Socratic Dialogue

Our work involves close analysis of Socratic dialogue in Sokratiska and Paideia Seminars (Billings andFitzgerald, 2002; Pihlgren, 2008), grounded in socio-cognitive theory. Similar to Socratic dialogue, TheSokratiska and Paideia Seminars are defined as “a collaborative, intellectual dialogue about ideas and values,based on a text, facilitated by open-ended questions, resulting in enhanced conceptual understanding” (Roberts and Billings, 2008). By examining both quantitative and qualitative aspects of thinking in dialogue, we have found important socio-cognitive patterns. In developing systems for analysis we have identified the following important features:•• Ratio of teacher to student talk (turns and time)•• Content of talk (textual ideas, personal connections)•• Use of gestures and various means of non-verbal communication•• Levels of cognition (recall to synthesis)In addition, we have found a curious interpersonal cognitive processing which frequently occurs in seminar dialogue, prompting new individual and collective thinking. This, we believe, poses an important challenge to existing theory on thinking.