Language & Cognition seminar - Dr Susan Howell

The Interactional Network Tool: a new way to measure group interactional behaviour

Group settings are used by a range of organisations and professions, including psychology and speech and language therapy, to train communication skills. Participant contributions may vary: the group facilitator or therapist may direct the interaction; a minority of participants may contribute a lot; non-contributors may be following the conversation or be completely disengaged. A measurement tool to show who connects with who, to identify isolates or dominators and to measure group involvement would enable interaction goal setting, and provide evidence of pre-post intervention gains. Howell et al. (2020a&b) developed the Interactional Network Tool (INT) to test the feasibility of this measurement approach. The INT is a web-based application designed to be accessed from a desktop computer or laptop. The software produces a visual representation of group participation using communication behaviours coded from a filmed interaction. This talk will demonstrate the tool.