The Instrument of Discursive Analysis: a heuristic tool supporting the educational community

In a social context increasingly marked by individualistic behaviors, conflictual language, and a common lack of ethical passion, it has become urgent to examine how students engage in dialogue and co-construct meanings. Consequently, educational practice requires educational tools that support teachers—from preschool through secondary school—in understanding specific conversational dynamics among students.

This contribution aims to address this need by proposing a research-validated tool that highlights how students dialogue with one another. This tool is the Instrument of Discursive Analysis (Mortari & Silva, 2018; Mortari, 2001): a heuristic and educational instrument that, by embracing the Empirical Phenomenological Method (Mortari et al., 2023), captures the essence of discursive acts and the conversational profile that emerges during classroom dialogue.

The objective is to provide operational guidelines regarding the Instrument of Discursive Analysis, adaptable to the context of educational practice. Thus, this study empowers teachers by introducing a tool for daily classroom use that supports systematic observation of verbal exchanges, identification of conversational moves, and characterization of the conversational profile of groups in the class. To support this proposal, the results of an educational research study at school are presented, featuring the implementation of the Instrument of Discursive Analysis in a student conversation on ethical concepts.