The Communication Analysis Tool – Landing Page
Welcome to the website for the Communication Analysis Tool (or ‘CAT’, for short). Here you can find further information how you can use the CAT tool.
What is CAT?
In brief, CAT is a quantitative observation tool for action-based research “in the wild”. It allows researchers to integrate a coding scheme (that is, a measure) of their choice and then use it to observe a critical situation that they would like to observe (a meeting, a group discussion, or the like) to better understand effective and ineffective processes (i.e., research). CAT can also be used for interventions (i.e., feedback of observed behaviours in training and in real life).
What can CAT be used for?
We have multiple examples of how CAT has been used in the past in research. The possibilities are really endless.
To give you an idea, researchers have used CAT to understand a range of phenomena:
- team functioning during critical performance episodes (e.g., planning in teams using agile scrum methodology)
- how teams work together under extreme isolation during Mars space missions
- understanding what effective leaders do when working with action teams in extreme safety-critical contexts
- assessing the integrity in behaviour-change interventions like Motivational Interviewing
You can use the section ‘Applications of CAT (Example Projects)’ or browse through the video series of User Experiences to get a better idea of how CAT has been used.
CAT is a tool that is used in combination with human observers (often called ‘coders’ or ‘raters’) who can use the tool to track specific (communication) processes.
Why would I want to use CAT?
We often have users who are researchers (in the social sciences) who seek to collect systematic observations in their field of study.
- You may be looking for an alternative for using paper-pencil for your observations.
- You may have a number of video/audio-recordings and are now trying to find a way to systematically code what happens on those videos/audio-recordings.
- You may have an exciting research project ‘in the wild’ and are looking for a way to log observations on the go.
There might be other reasons why you want to use CAT. If you are working in Industry and are looking for a tool that helps you during observations of assessment centres (group discussions), then CAT may help you in achieving this.
Feel free to browse through the information and videos below.
The CAT research team
Feel free to reach out to our research team if you have any questions about using CAT or if you are interested in using it.
Florian Klonek Florian.klonek@curtin.edu.au
Georgia Hay Georgia.hay@curtin.edu.au
Cecilia Runneboom cecilia.runneboom@curtin.edu.au
Bram Chai Bram Chai bram.chai@curtin.edu.au
User examples:
1. Understanding meeting effectiveness with CAT
Contact: Fabiola Gerpott
2. Understanding decision-making in multi-disciplinary teams
Contact: Meredith Carr, Dr. Florian Klonek
3. Measuring productivity and wellbeing in a mining organisation
Contact: Hawa Muhammad Farid, Lisette Kanse
4. User testimonial - Wendy
Contact: Wendy de Waal-Andrews
5. User Experience - Melissa
Contact: Melissa Twemlow
6. User Experience - Sofia
Contact: Sofia Schlamp
Knowledge Exploration in Meetings to Achieve Team Innovation
Why use CAT
Measuring Motivational Interviewing training
If you are interested in working with CAT, please contact us:
florian.klonek@curtin.edu.au or georgia.hay@curtin.edu.au
We currently provide CAT to two type of users: RESEARCHERS and CONSULTANTS. Please take a moment to describe your goal for using CAT. We will have a look at them and get back in touch with you.
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Give us a brief overview of your research project. The following questions might help you to describe your project. We do not expect you to have answers to all questions. Nonetheless, we believe that a reflection of these questions is helpful in using CAT and working with us. 1) User type: Would you describe yourself as a RESEARCHER (i.e., conducting systematic/academic research) or CONSULTANT (mainly working with industry-related projects, industry-based consulting)? 2) Motivation: How have you heard of CAT? Why do you want to use? 3) Research question /Project: What phenomenon do you want to study or observe? Do you have a specific research question? What is the goal of your project? 4) Context: In which context do you want to measure or observe this/these phenomenon/phenomena? Who are your participants? How many participants or events do you plan to measure? Are you carrying out your study within an organisation or are you planning to collect your data in a lab? 5) Methodological approach: Are you planning to observe live or using video or audio-recordings? Will you be working with external observers? If yes - how many? Will your observations be unstructured (that is, open coding, taking notes) or structured (that is, are you using an existing (or adapted) observational measure)? If you are working with an existing/adapted observational measure, please tell us which measure you are using (as we might help you to incorporate it into CAT). Are you collecting other types of data (e.g., participant survey data, objective measures (sales, heart rate etc.)? 6) Ethics: Have you addressed participant consent for the observations? Have you or are you planning to obtain ethical approval from a human ethics committee for your study? 7) Data Management: Can you share the observational data that you are planning to collect with the developers of CAT? What type of data can you share and what type of data can you not share? 8) Outcome: How do you evaluate your outcomes? What outcomes are you trying to achieve? |
Demo 1: Accessing a pre-defined "measure/coding scheme
CAT Demo_Accessing coding schemes.pdfIn this video, we explain how you can create a user account, use an existing communication annotation tool, and create an automatic feedback report. The example here is to use CAT for a conversational style called Motivational Interviewing.
Demo 2: Capturing communication dynamics in CAT with an existing coding scheme
In this video, we explain how you can use an existing existing communication annotation tool to capture communication dynamics. The example used in CAT is the coding scheme act4teams (for more details on this measure see: Klonek et al., 2016; Meinecke & Lehmann-Willenbrock, 2015). Please note that this video is not about teaching you how to correctly assign codes from the act4teams coding scheme – but more broadly how to use an existing coding scheme within the CAT app.
References
Meinecke, A. L., & Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2015). Social dynamics at work: Meetings as a gateway. In J. A. Allen, N. Lehmann-Willenbrock, & S. G. Rogelberg (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of meeting science (pp. 325–356). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Klonek, F. E., Quera, V., Burba, M., & Kauffeld, S. (2016). Group interactions and time: Using sequential analysis to study group dynamics in project meetings. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 20(3), 209.
Demo 3: Using CAT to assign speaker turn taking in a group discussion
In this video, we explain how you can use CAT to segment a group discussion into speaker turns. The video recorded for this example is taken from AMI meeting corpus ©.
References
http://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/ami/corpus/signals.shtml
"Play data": Here you can download some small videos to play with the different functions in CAT.
Team discussion in a meeting with 4 participants
Demo 4: Video 1- How to: Create a coding session for a video file
Demo 5: Video 2- How to: Upload a video file and an introduction to the rating scales
Demo 6: Video 3- How to: Create time stamps and code using the rating scales
Demo 7: Video 4- How to: End your coding session and access your data
Demo 8: Video 5- How to: Edit your coding measure and access your data
Choosing a coding scheme for CAT: A practice demonstration
How to set up a media file: A practical demonstration
How to code data: A practical demonstration
How to create feedback in CAT: A practical demonstration
If you use CAT (Communication Analysis Tool) for your research, please acknowledge that this tool was developed by researchers from the "Centre of Transformative Work Design". You can include one of the following references (depending on what is appropriate) in the reports, papers or publications for which you have used CAT during data collection.
Klonek, F.E., Meinecke, A., Hay, G., & Parker, S. (2020). Capturing team dynamics in the wild: The communication analysis tool. Small Group Research. Doi: 10.1177/1046496420904126
Postprint_Klonek et al_SGR_2019_CAT tool.pdf
Klonek, F.E., Gerpott, F., Lehmann-Willenbrock, N., & Parker, S. (2019). Time to go wild: How to conceptualize and measure process dynamics in real teams with high resolution? Organizational Psychology Review. Advance online publication: 10.1177/2041386619886674
Postprint_Klonek et al_OPR_in press_Time to go Wild_PostPrintVersion.pdf
Centre for Transformative Work Design, University of Western Australia & Curtin University / Curtin University (2018). Communication Analysis Tool (CAT, Version 2.0, [update version]) [Mobile application software]. Retrieved from https://cat.ctwd.com.au/
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Published Research Examples
Kanse, L., Muhammad Farid, H., & Klonek, F. (2020). Facilitating the tasks of observers and observees. In R. Charles & D. Golightly (Eds.), Proceedings of Contemporary Ergonomics & Human Factors Conference 2020 & the 13th International Symposium on Human Factors in Organisational Design and Management (ODAM2020) (pp. 332-333), 28-29 April 2020, Stratford-upon-Avon / virtual. Birmingham, UK: Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors.
Schlamp, S., Gerpott, F. H., & Voelpel, S. C. (2020). Same talk, different reaction? Communication, emergent leadership and gender. Journal of Managerial Psychology. Doi: 10.1108/JMP-01-2019-0062
Projects in preparation
#1 Project Title: Understanding the role of team transition processes coded in CAT in agile Scrum Teams.
Contact: Melissa Twemlow, Prof. Maria Tims
Coding Tool (implemented in CAT): Micro-Co (Micro-analytical Taxonomy for Analysis of Explicit Coordination Mechanisms in Decision-Making Groups, see Kolbe et al., 2011)
#2 Project Title: The role of dynamic leader behaviors in extreme action teams
Contact: Prof. Gillian Yeo, Dr. Daniela Andrei, Dr. Florian Klonek
Coding Tool (implemented in CAT): Leadership Functions during Transition Phases (see Morgeson et al., 2010)
#3 Project Title: The role of effective team interaction processes during Mars missions
Contact: Prof. Vera Hagemann, Lara Waterman, Dr. Florian Klonek
Coding Tool (implemented in CAT): in prep.
#4 Project Title: Ensuring Motivational Interviewing Integrity with CAT
Contact: Dr. Verena Zimmer, Dr. Florian Klonek, Marvin Krager
#5 Project Title: Using the Circumplex Leadership Scan in the TV show ‘The Apprentice’ with the CAT tool
Contact: Prof. Wendy de Waal-Andrews
#6 Project Title: Teaching observational research methods with CAT
Contact: Dr. Annika Meinecke
The following 40 min. lecture is a summary of a research paper that was published in Small Group Research.
Klonek, F.E., Meinecke, A., Hay, G., & Parker, S. (2020). Capturing team dynamics in the wild: The communication analysis tool. Small Group Research
Motivation to develop CAT
We developed CAT for a field research project that aimed to examine how multi-professional teams diagnose rare diseases. All co-authors had been involved in field research projects focusing on team or dyadic communication (references for these projects are blinded for review purposes) and were keen to support methodological innovation in team dynamics research. In the early stages of the research project, we had the opportunity to observe team meetings of health care professionals when they discussed rare disease patients. It was unclear whether we were going to be able to video-record those meetings, hence, we were looking for a solution to collect time-stamped behavioral data in real-time.
Step 1: Review and evaluation of existing tools
The first author reviewed and tested various existing apps/tools that are available for behavioral analyses1 (e.g., „Behavior Tracker“; ABC Video Pro; BehaviorSnap and various others). The first author also had about seven years of experience working with one of the common commercial software solutions (i.e., INTERACT from Mangold International) within multiple research projects (Citation blinded for review) and had tested the commercial live coding app (Obanysis2) from this commercial supplier. After reviewing, testing and discussing these options amongst our team, we decided that none of the existing tools had sufficient flexibility for use in our intended context.
Step 2: Goals for the software
We had multiple goals for CAT. First, we wanted a tool that could be used for coding of both live observations and that could annotate video/audio-recorded data. This was important because we expected recordings to be impossible in the early stages of the project, but hoped they might be possible at a later stage. Second, the tool had to compatible with tablet, phone and laptop. Third, the tool had to provide some basic feedback functions (i.e., summary statistics of the meeting/session, Gantt charts the display participation over time). This was important for motivating the teams to allow us to be present. Fourth, the tool had to be free to use for research purposes. Fifth, the tool had to be sufficiently flexible to incorporate a variety of different coding schemes (i.e., varying number of codes, possibility to edit the names of codes/enter full code names and code descriptions instead of only letters; inclusion of rating scales). Furthermore, the tool had to allow researchers to adapt and change names of existing schemes. Sixth, the tool had to allow easy exchange for data (and templates for coding schemes) across labs internationally.
Step 3: Programing the software
A first prototype of CAT was developed in May 2017. After a positive evaluation of this prototype, we further developed the software in iterative steps involving biweekly meetings over about 8 months involving the programmer and authors. Overall, the tool involved about 585 hours of IT development (i.e., about 15.5 weeks full-time work just for our programmer).
1 We used a list of behavior analysis apps provided by https://batechsig.com/2015/03/09/apps-for-behavior-analysts/
2 https://www.mangold-international.com/en/products/software/mobile-observation-with-obansys
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