Walking through Discussions: A Mobile Visual Analytics System for In-Situ Group Discussion Analysis
Authors
Yiping Sun (Central South University), Ziyao Kang (Central South University), Wei Zeng (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)), Minli Wu (Central South University), Jiazhi Xia (Central South University)
Presentation
- Session
- Let's dig into the data (from China)
- Time
- Friday, Nov 13, 08:12 – 08:24 (US/Eastern) · session 08:00 – 09:30
- Location
- Hall America center
Links
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Keywords
Visual analytics, mobile visualization, collaborative learning analytics, group discussion
Abstract
Group discussion-based teaching is widely used to foster collaborative learning, yet teachers in physical classrooms often struggle to simultaneously monitor multiple groups and quickly diagnose a target group before intervening. Existing visual analytics tools primarily support post-hoc analysis on desktop, providing limited support for in-situ walk-around teaching. To address this gap, we present MobileGroupVis, a mobile visual analytics system for in-situ analysis of classroom group discussions. MobileGroupVis integrates multi-group monitoring, single-group diagnosis, and instructional intervention into a concise analytical workflow tailored for small-screen touch interaction. The system is powered by a lightweight streaming analysis pipeline that converts group audio into structured discussion data and further extracts interaction patterns, topic progression, and topic deviation through a dialogue analysis module. To enable both glanceable overview and traceable diagnosis, we design six coordinated views, including a compact glyph that visually encodes word count, interaction intensity, and topic deviation for efficient cross-group comparison and anomaly localization, along with detailed views for opinion evolution, interaction dynamics, topic coverage, and dialogue records. We evaluate MobileGroupVis through two case studies and expert interviews. The results provide preliminary evidence that MobileGroupVis supports teachers in understanding discussion processes, identifying groups in need of attention, and facilitating in-class intervention.
For Practitioners
This paper may be of interest to educators, instructional designers, learning analytics practitioners, and developers of classroom analytics systems. Practitioners can apply the proposed mobile visual analytics workflow and design principles to support in-situ monitoring of multiple discussion groups, rapid diagnosis of issues such as topic deviation, stagnation, and participation imbalance, and evidence-informed instructional intervention. The paper also provides practical guidance for designing compact, traceable analytics interfaces for mobile use in dynamic classroom settings.