Intersubjectivity and Educational Technology

Definition and Development

Intersubjectivity has its roots in philosophy, sociology, and psychology. The phenomenological branch of philosophy views intersubjectivity as the interactional achievement between independent subjectivities, meaning people or personal experiences. The concept expanded in psychology to a theory of a relationship between a psychoanalyst and a client. In sociology, intersubjectivity is recognized less as a static intersection of the personal experiences of individuals and more as a dynamic intersection between two independent, participating, subjective systems. As it began to be applied to the field of education during the early 21st century, intersubjectivity drew from its multidisciplinary roots to become the representation of knowledge construction achieved through a synergistic progression from individual contributions within a dialogue to sequences of interdependent contributions within the dialogue.

The emphasis on participation is important to the construct of intersubjectivity. Intersubjectivity relates to the coordination of individual contributions during the discussion, thereby creating a sense of progression as participants build on each other’s contributions. Each participant coordinates his or her contributions to the discussion by beginning from the position at which the previous participant concluded. Participants develop shared understanding by relating one discursive act to another, relying on artifacts created by the ongoing conversation to develop new contributions to the discourse. In online education, these participants are mostly learners (with some participation from the course facilitator/instructor) and these artifacts are the messages posted to the course discussion board. This discussion board, discussion forum, threaded discussion, and similarly named spaces represent the affordance of the educational technology, which is further discussed later in this entry.

Distinction From Interaction

From this definition of intersubjectivity and an understanding of how it developed through multiple disciplines, a distinction from interaction emerges. Interaction is mostly linear without necessarily advancing the conversation beyond superficial observations or agreements. Learners gain little by simply restating the same points. In online discussions, learners often fall into the habit of making an initial post and a minimum number of required peer responses, with these responses being statements of agreement intended to meet the requirement rather than extend the dialogue around the course concepts.

Simple interaction neither produces nor demonstrates knowledge construction consistent with the epistemological perspective of social constructivism. Successful knowledge construction requires active, ongoing, deep participation occurring at a higher level than surface interaction. Interaction does not require the shared understandings or intentions implicit in intersubjectivity. These intentions include exploring [Page 426]alternative perspectives, identifying areas of disagreement, challenging sources of evidence, proposing new understandings, or applying new understandings—new knowledge—to existing and future experiences. Thus, although interaction is inherent in learning, it is feasible to take interaction to a higher level, and this higher level is called intersubjectivity.

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