Critical Reviews with Quantitative Ethnography: Theory Use in Literature on Quantified Group Work in Educational Settings

Mapping the evolving landscape of academic fields is crucial for understanding existing knowledge and identifying gaps for further research exploration. This paper explores the use of quantitative ethnography (QE) as an analysis strategy to bring together networked mappings of articles with qualitative interpretations of their content. QE enriches the common use of keyword or citation network models in literature reviews. Using the case of quantification of group work in educational settings, we employ Modular Analysis and Epistemic Network Analysis to find patterns in research methodologies, data types, and research aims, which we interpret iteratively through qualitative and quantitative tools. We identify three clusters of codes, which we identify as being focused on methodological advancement, assessments, and specific learning aims. One key difference we find setting these clusters apart is the articles’ use of learning theory, which is a difference that emerges from our QE-informed analysis and which elaborates on a trend noted in other reviews.