Table 1.

Key decision points and considerations for setting up interaction analytical research

Key decision	Action items and questions to address	Further details
Specifying the interaction context and overarching research question	• Which behaviors suggest the interaction of interest is occurring? • Where are these interactions most likely to occur? (i.e., meetings, interviews) • How will the interactions impact the individuals/teams in terms of (a) within context processes and (b) outcomes?	See Table 2 for examples
Specifying the procedure for data gathering, unitizing, and coding	• How should the data be recorded? Audio? Video? Both? Other? • What are the available coding schemes? Do they fit the question/interaction of interest? If not, how to create a coding scheme? • What is the unit of interest within the interaction? Utterance versus pattern versus other	E.g., Meinecke and Lehmann-Willenbrock (2015)
Selecting software to support the coding nd subsequent analyses	• Which functions should be included? • Consider both quantitative analytical functions and visualization options • How many licenses are needed? E.g., at least two licenses to equip two coders who can work simultaneously	See Table 3
Selecting a pattern analytical method	• Which type of research question needs to be addressed? E.g., “Do problem analysis statements trigger solutions?” • Which analytical approach is needed for addressing this question? E.g., How often do solutions follow problem analysis statements in the data? Is this behavioral sequence statistically meaningful? ➔ Select lag sequential analysis	See Table 4
Running analyses and interpreting the results	• What do significance tests tell us about the interaction pattern? • How to move from counting patterns to predicting patterns and outcomes of interactions?	E.g., Bakeman and Quera (2011), for lag sequential analysis; Magnusson (2000), for pattern analysis; Chiu and Lehmann-Willenbrock (2016), for Statistical Discourse Analysis