Despite not overlooking the issue of the conceptualization and measurement of student learning throughout academic education in the countries of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2008), it is of great interest to education centers and their professional teams to come up with novel ideas to help create educational experiences that provoke deep or expert learning (Hattie, 2015; Houser and Hosek, 2018; Stobart, 2014).

This article, which complements previous publications on instructional communication by employing an expert expository format derived from the university lecture (Tronchoni et al., 2018b; Tronchoni, 2019; Tronchoni et al., 2021, 2022), falls within the chain of joint efforts made by an education center and its teaching staff to enhance their teaching practice, firmly committed to an active social-constructivist vision of the learning process (Chi, 2009).

Within the framework of participatory action research (Elliot, 1991), our research commitment with the center and participating lecturers consisted of analyzing how the teachers—in their interactions with the attending students—gave expert expository lessons. These lessons were designed as a mode of participatory interaction (PI) based on a kind of listening (Barker, 1971; Rogers, 1984) that entails the recognition of the dialogic experience (Bakhtin, 1981) of the overlapping, nested, crossed, or defined alternation of speaking-speaking turns, together with confirmatory sympathy (Watzlawick and Weakland, 1977), and the sharing of the active-comprehensive state of the interlocution (Pérez Fernández, 2008; Van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983) initiated, maintained, and closed by the expert format.

The research-educational focus of the improvement of participatory interaction with an expert expository format (from now on PI§EF) was designed in accordance with the possibilities offered by observational methodology within the framework of the mixed methods paradigm (Bazeley, 2018). The challenge of integrating qualitative and quantitative processes in data extraction and analysis is inherent in non-intrusive observational methodologies, preferably based on systematic methods of diachronic analysis of the continuous stream of behavior events in context (Alvarado-Álvarez et al., 2021). The categories to be observed and coded for later quantitative and qualitative analysis must be well defined and accessible to external observers in order for the study of them to be replicated (Anguera et al., 2021; Izquierdo and Anguera, 2021).

It should be noted that the systematic framework of observation—conceived as a specific way to access the quantification of behavior—is distinguished from other quantitative methodological options present in psychological research in that it incorporates, controls, and verifies the shared criteria of scientific rigor and its connections with the objective of the study. Therefore, it is imperative to consider the sensitivity and conditions that impact the process of obtaining, measuring, and analyzing situated behavior, which must be taken into account, preferably from a sequential perspective (Bakeman and Gottman, 1986). In the Method section, the necessary indications are incorporated step by step to enable understanding of how the research was conducted and to be able to offer a sufficient degree of precision and replicability, although it is not without limitations (Vide, Section 4).

Thus, in the methodological context of systematic observation, we carried out a multiple case study in accordance with the case aggregation procedure (Anguera, 2018) that incorporates the suggestions of Stake (2006) and Yin (2014). Our objective of conducting an intensive inquiry focuses on the momentary and dynamic aspects of PI§EF, with the idiographic aim of exploring the existence of patterned regularities in the multimodal instructional processes shared by the participants (Vide, Section 2.3).

The educational task of teaching and supporting learning (Wertsch, 1988) implies guiding the process of content acquisition via student-teacher interaction in order to achieve the goals of the activity (Van Dijk et al., 2020). In the expert expository task, the instructional communication pivots between “giving” information about what is known and “asking questions”¹ about how it is known. The presence or absence in the participants—total or partial—of this two-fold game of intentions will leave a mark on both verbal and non-verbal modes of activating the lecturer’s expository plan from both extremes of the interaction. In effect, both actions foster the planning and execution of the lecturer’s explanation, and both actions connect with the constructive activity of the students’ active-comprehending listening (Pérez Fernández, 2008; Van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). It can be inferred that the educational objectives put into circulation by “give” and “question” are spontaneously shared and anticipated by the mere act of executing out the assigned task in the classroom (Goffman, 1974; Poyatos, 1983). It is imperative to be adequately prepared for the PI§EF challenge, given the potential risks and obstacles that may result in a demoralizing outcome.

Our research focuses on the systematic observation of PI§EF on the cognitive and socio-affective processes of active-comprehending listening, which is stimulated by the acts of speaking and discursive and semiotic strategies (Coll and Onrubia, 2001; Sperber and Wilson, 2004; Van Dijk, 1985, 2000; Van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983). This dialogued expository mode is expressed in the verbal and non-verbal behavior of the observable exchanges within the expert’s speaking turn (Duncan, 1973; McCarthy, 2003) and, to a lesser extent, in the rotation between turns (Duncan and Fiske, 1977; Poyatos, 1983).

In accordance with our conceptualization (Tronchoni et al., 2018b), the invitation to dialogical cooperation stemming from active-comprehending listening implies something more than mere factual recognition (Kilby, 2021) of the acknowledgement of the information provided at each point in time. The communicating actors observe, listen, write, ask, answer, etc., and these observable actions can be interpreted within the framework of the declared intentions plan and/or performed by the participants as the tip of the iceberg of the non-mechanical deep processing (Ausubel et al., 1978; Bruner, 1960) of interactive minds (Staudinger and Baltes, 1996). These externalize the internal dialogue manifested in the auditor back channels activities (Duncan, 1973) and in the brief alternate couplings—secondary alternating, alternation filling in, or overlapping—between the students and the teacher, employing verbal and non-verbal language that is almost like shorthand and unique to the group to communicate what is being understood and, therefore, consequently shared (Schön, 1987).

Our vision of the role played by PI§EF is rooted in the educational principles of social-constructivist psychological development (Coll and Onrubia, 2001; Wertsch, 1988); in addition, we are also concerned about universal design for learning (UDL) principles (Mottet, 2015; Novak, 2016). When we talk about the construction of expert knowledge, we refer to the socio-affective/cognitive learning changes and the micro changes or small steps that the actors experience and express as dispositional movements and/or instrumental tools. These changes contribute to the growth of autonomous expertise. We have identified the involved mechanisms of educational support as fluid or sequential scaffolding (Bruner, 1978), depending on the contribution of both extremes in the interaction, and as teacher-planned scaffolding aided by high or low technology (Yelland and Masters, 2007). In the context of co-constructive (Monereo, 2009) step-by-step improvement, diachronic systematic observation provides us with consistent lag sequential analysis results, enabling us to advance—in our case—in the formation of fluid scaffolding and the preparation and execution of planned scaffolding.

To be more precise, and by way of summary, so far we have referred to: (a) the fluid otherness sustained by the motives and baggage of previous experiences and knowledge that nurture cooperation in the organization of active-comprehending listening shared by both extremes of the interaction; and (b) the collaboration via the use of strategies and abilities linked to the problems anticipated by the teacher and those that arise that shake the socio-cognitive/emotional adjustments of the PI§EF (Tronchoni et al., 2021).

The scientific and professional interest that this approach to PI§EF—based on expert learning with global and dynamic social-constructivist modeling—might have for university lecturers (Mandl et al., 1996) has been subjected to a process of systematic review (Tronchoni et al., 2022).

The results obtained are unfavorable, despite the fact that the framework of systematic evidence employed verified the scientific visibility of the existence of a determination to renew the expository lecture format prevalent across different continents. This is supported by higher education institutions and educational research centers, and it is recognized and demanded by a wide range of existing fields of knowledge. The suggestion for this renovation is limited to Incorporating ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) and the use of strategies, techniques, and practices that foster motivation, commitment, and active learning. These are certainly improvements, but they are also at risk of reducing the expert expository format to a mere anecdote since no value is placed on the dialogued condition of active-comprehending listening.

Hence, it can be asserted that despite having established the existence of a widespread interest among universities over the five continents in transforming the expository format inherited from the lecture class, no specific formative treatment has been identified for the comprehensive, in-depth development of the principle of activity linked to the processes of construction and interaction of learning (Chi, 2009) with an expert expository format (§EF). This vacuum is what has driven us to develop and obtain evidence about PI§EF.

Finally, we conclude this section by establishing the prerequisites of the expert expository format and furnishing PI§EF with an operational definition. The §EF rules that we have taken into consideration are: R1, the rule of shared commitment between both extremes of the interaction, with active-comprehending listening; R2, the rule of “give-receive/receive-give” in accordance with the expert’s fundamental actions of give/question; and R3, the rule of the asymmetric constriction of the speaking time in the students’ turns.

We conceive the expert expository moment—independently of the duration of the explanation—as a PI experience lived and relayed by the listeners with these words: speak, speak, and do not stop (S), because we follow you (F) and you understand us (C) and also follow us (G)… In this way, together we will learn to be experts (PI§EF).² By using the algebra of sets, we have:

where, PI§EF = x/x ∈ S ^ x ∈ F ^ x ∈ C ^ x ∈ G. In accordance with this expression, we define participatory interaction (PI), made up of the rules of the expert expository format (§EF), as a set of values assigned to the properties or attributes common to the four components: (1) the teacher speaks (S), (2) the students follow (F), (3) the actors feel the confirmation of the relationship (C), and (4) the actors share the help that guides the learning (G). The intersection of the four components encompasses the following attributes: the direction of the speech (K), the illocutionary action of the intervention (L), the modality of the response (M), and the orientation of the exchange (N) (Vide; Figure 1).

Finally, from the point of view of union (∪), the disjunctive attributes (˅) include the specific and distinctive elements of each component in accordance with the situations covered (Vide, Section 2.2).

The existence of systematic observation in the disciplinary field of analysis of social interaction involving multimodal human communication is due to important methodological advances tied to conceptual, statistical, and computer aspects (Anguera and Izquierdo, 2006; Sackett, 1980).

In this section, we incorporate, on the one hand, the advantage of having bridged the gap between the qualitative and the quantitative by allowing the observational records of interactive behavior—that are categorical in nature—to undergo a quantitative treatment through the construction of an organized data matrix in accordance with certain parameters. This is made possible through the use of novel robust techniques of quantitative analysis applicable to social interaction (Anguera et al., 2021).

On the other hand, the incorporation of a multiple case study as a methodological aim (Anguera, 2018) has allowed us to go deeper into the proposed observational problem without losing intensity; i.e., lag sequential analysis (Sackett, 1980) applied to the data matrix of each lecturer participating in this research (n = A, B, C, and D) is completed by verifying the existence of identical structures in the behavioral patterns detected via the aggregation of data from the four participating lecturers: A, B, C, and D; AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, and CD; ABC, ABD, ACD; BCD; and ABCD (Anguera, 2018; Yin, 2014).

The results of the file aggregation are presented in table format. The category-given behavior is located in the central column, and the patterns PI§EF are classified in accordance with their structural characteristics: temporal orientation (retrospective/prospective), temporal position of the link of the event conditioned for GB (the five lag positions), nature of the link associative to the event conditioned with GB, and type of conditioned event (positive/negative). Each table contains an interpretative description of the patterns found, based on the positive and negative associations identified.

The evaluative-formative objective of this research into instructional communication situates the discussion of the presented outcomes with the realm of educational intervention. In line with a relational vision of the communication that takes place via languages and psychosocial relationships, the interactive process has been designed to recognize the speakers’ participation, i.e., both extremes of the interaction listen and transact (Anguera and Izquierdo, 2006; Izquierdo, 1996; Izquierdo and Anguera, 2021; Izquierdo and Perinat, 2010; Watzlawick and Jackson, 2010; Winkin, 1981).

The principles of communication (Grice, 1975; Marc and Picard, 1989; van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983; Watzlawick and Weakland, 1977) that support the instrument of systematic observation, LUniMex-2017, are (Tronchoni et al., 2018b): (a) the concept of feedback and its various functions, (b) the dialogism inherent in verbal interaction, (c) the situation and the activity’s objectives, (d) the exchange of meanings, (e) the multimodal construction of meaning, (f) the reciprocity or recognition of the other as a valid interlocutor, and (g) mutual influence.

The reading of the PI§EF process was contextualized from the educational viewpoint in the principles of social constructivism, which structure the educational discourse (Coll, 1996; Coll and Onrubia, 2001; Coll et al., 1992; García-Fariña et al., 2018; Prados and Cubero, 2005; Rogoff, 1990) around the teacher-student shared task of adjusting the expert explanation and the activity of active-comprehending listening as a process of guided and conscious dialogical inquiry (Ur, 1994; Fernández and Cuadrado, 2008).

The detection by aggregation of cases (Anguera, 2018) of shared significant patterns in the analyzed combinations of triples and quaternary (see other examples, Alarcón-Espinoza et al., 2024; García-Fariña et al., 2018) has enabled us to concentrate the descriptive return of the observed instructional behavior into a theoretical-interpretative diagram showing the complexity of the exchanges motivated by the illocutionary action “question” (PE). The educational assistance identified in the significant and replicated link between PE and the categories “speech direction” and “exchange orientation” includes: (a) regulatory dialogical sequences of how we communicate and what we share, (b) dialogical sequences of attention opening and subject advancement, and (c) dialogical sequences of closure with significance.

The communicative mode PE is further complemented by the communicative mode “give” (DA). Both modes of communication attempt to identify both instrumental and relational issues of adjustment between the attending students and the expert teacher (Figure 5).

We comprehend that these two distinct movements of educational support pertaining to language are generated in different ways. Maintenance of the fluid deployment of the sequential or planned educational support in PE mode is fed by the lecturer’s (D) search for information about the course of the interaction to assess what questions to ask in order to reinforce and channel the students’ active-comprehending listening (E). However, when the teacher executes action DA, the search for information is centered on the evaluative behavior displayed by the students (E) minute by minute throughout the explanation. It is noteworthy that the critical position of D in DA is not altered by educational support; it does not modify the course of the instructional communication dialogue until the lecturer incorporates the listeners’ message received in DA.

The instructional intervention, supported by a systematic observation study and envisaged as a constructivist learning environment via the viewing of the produced digital videos, involves (Jonassen and Rohrer-Murphy, 1999) returning the results incorporated into the theoretical-interpretative diagram, exposing the filming to dialogued self-observation, and establishing a plan of improvement. The use of video analysis in education and in sports training (Chicote et al., 2009; Cushion, 2006; Hernández-Mendo and Anguera, 2000; Lemyre et al., 2007) provides evidence about the benefits it can bring. In our case, it is worth mentioning that self-observation and the discussion of the video recordings connect with the expectations and interests of the teachers involved.

Four examples are presented, one for each case, interpreted according to the theoretical interpretative diagram of the adjustment model PE ECCOipc§EF (Vide; Figure 4). The examples are accompanied by: (i) the adjustment model of experience and shared knowledge in class (ECCO) based on feedback, (ii) the scaffolding mode—sequential or planned, and (iii) a descriptive framework that places each example in the temporal phase of the class session (start, middle, or end), the didactic moment it corresponds to (introduction, development, or closure) and the subject, followed by the subject.

These examples of the adjustment model PE ECCOipc§EF are reflected in the different realities lived and experienced by the four lecturers and embody the interpretative diagram based on the knowledge adjustment shared in class and the analysis of the multiple cases. Therefore, within the framework of participatory action research (Vide, Section 1), the professional educational task requires the teacher to self-observe via the viewing of filmed sessions, moving backward and forward, and stopping in exemplifying situations to describe feedback management and the sequential and planned structure of PI§EF.

The instance of Case A takes place within a scenario that seeks the confirmation (when do we have to hand in the portfolios?) of established rules regarding the study and autonomous development of the work. The situation in Case B corresponds to a dynamic feedback that connects and mobilizes the thematic plan of the course (Last week we talked about the Middle Ages), and it is anticipated that active listening will be established (the students are in preparation mode, taking out material) on what follows and commences the session. Both accumulative examples, owing to their sedimentation of the ongoing work, correspond to a planned scaffolding that guides the conduct of the exposition.

Case C is within a scenario that seeks to ensure the correct reception (to the consulting and clinical [model], right?) of thematic content (models of educational orientation) studied prior to the filmed class session. The situation in the Case D example corresponds to revitalizing feedback mobilized through the act of questioning (Do you know why?), in which the lecturer knows the difficulties the students might have in the action of listening-comprehending, reducing the cognitive distance (because it could be a rule of mathematical correspondence). Both examples—Cases C and D—correspond to a sequential structure plan derived from an in situ interactive sequence between the lecturer and the students.

In terms of the four examples provided here, there are some advanced guidelines to assist the teacher to address basic and important issues, such as: the need to plan autonomous work and study together with the students (Case A); the importance of preparing the necessary resources that affect attention from the beginning of the session, and adopting WE BEGIN mode (Case B); to strengthen objectivism about the circumstances, conditions, and consequences related to learning consolidation (Case C); and mediate cognitive distance with the incorporation of longer pauses following a question that permit the students to establish connections between their prior knowledge through oral contributions (Case D).

The work of teacher self-observation is guided by the discussion of the results from the practiced systematic observation and used as a support of the lived experience in viewing the filmed sessions. This training exercise process involves the conscious, deep, and reflexive vision of the teacher, channeled toward a plan of improvement of what is being done and how it is being done in terms of educational support. As previously stated in the introduction, the objective of PI§EF is to generate and cultivate the expertise of the listener as a communicative actor and as a learner of academic content.

In light of the above, it can be concluded that there exist two key moments in the pursuit of improving the preparation of the expert expository class. These are the updated, substantial, and well-documented moments of assembling the expository plan of curricular content and the moment of preparing communicative interaction, i.e., how to communicate it in the face of the communication-learning problem (Vide; Figure 2), via mechanisms of feedback and the discursive strategies on which the asymmetric commitment of the actors relies.

By way of conclusion, the above examples of the PE ECCOipc§EF adjustment model demonstrate the instructive potential of revealing what was previously hidden from the participants because they did not have the conceptual and analytical tools to objectively deal with the complexity of PI§EF. The four examples form a narrative of the captured images. The results of the observational research conducted are presented to the professional forum responsible for assessing the efficacy of the instructive proposal based on video analysis, backed by a previous systematic observation study conducted within the framework of the mixed methods approach with a multi-case study.

The limitations of this study are twofold: first, it is imperative to augment the number of trained observers; second, it is imperative to adhere to the training and consensus guidelines of the work and evaluate the agreement between observers until the application of the statistics specific to observational methodology. However, the instrument is clear and transparent and therefore has great potential for communication with the scientific and professional community. Furthermore, the laborious work of delimiting, naming, and defining the categories means that it is adaptable to different educational contexts. Furthermore, it allows us to progress through the molecularization of category systems in the morphology of comprehensive attention of the interpretative parts of the expository class, for the benefit of teacher training.