Best Practices for Reporting of Discourse Analysis

EasyChair Preprint 6494

Abstract

Introduction: Validity and reproducibility of results in spoken discourse analysis requires expert agreement on measures, methods, and analyses. Despite this, there are no comprehensive reporting standards in aphasia. This limits the efficacy of discourse measures in assessment and treatment of aphasia.

Methods: The top 165 publishing researchers in ‘aphasia + discourse analysis’ were identified through Web of Science and invited via email to contribute their expert opinion of minimum reporting standards for spoken discourse in aphasia. An eDelphi method with three iterative stages was implemented. In an online survey, experts rated the necessity of 42 possible reporting criteria relating to discourse elicitation, sample preparation, and analysis.

Results: 40 (24.24%) experts completed all rounds. Criteria with scores ≥ 70% were retained. Eleven criteria were rated as ‘necessary’, and a further five criteria as ‘recommended’. Discussed in the presentation, consensus was reached for criteria relating to inter-rater reliability, elicitation task description, and defining variables reported (e.g., utterance), among others.

Conclusions
Despite varied practices reported in the literature (Stark et al., 2021), expert agreement was sufficient for developing a comprehensive reporting guideline for spoken discourse in aphasia.

Keyphrases: aphasia, best practices, discourse

@booklet{EasyChair:6494,
  author    = {Lucy Bryant and Angela Roberts and Charalambos Themistocleous and Dirk den Ouden and Brielle Stark},
  title     = {Best Practices for Reporting of Discourse Analysis},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6494},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}