This study takes an interest in instructions and instructed actions in the context of manual skills. The analysis focuses on a video recorded episode where a teacher demonstrates how to crochet chain stitches, requests a group of students to reproduce her actions, and then repeatedly corrects the attempts of one of the students. The initial request, and the students' responses to it, could be seen as preliminary to the series of corrective sequences that come next: the request and the following attempts make it possible for the teacher to launch instructional sequences specifically designed and addressed to the students who need further guidance. In the interaction between the teacher and the novice student, the reasoned character of the instructed actions is not explained so much as installed and tuned. The materiality of the project makes it possible for the two parties to methodically and meticulously adjust their actions in accordance with each other, and towards the gradual realization of the aimed-for results. In connection to this, a number of issues pertaining to the reproducibility and recognizability of manual skills are raised: how instructions-in-interaction orient towards the progression of the skill rather than the interaction itself; how attempts by and mistakes of the instructed party provide grounds for further instruction; and, consequently, how instructions in the form of corrections build on the instructor's continuous assessments of the instructed actions.

High levels of stress and frustration in relation to RCT were reported by the GDPs. RCT was regarded as complex and was often performed with an overall sense of lack of control.

This study examines the practical work of a pair of students and an instructor using probeware in a mechanics lab. The aim of the study is to describe and discuss a type of interactional sequence that we refer to as dark matter, the ordinary backdrop to the extraordinary sequences that are easily recognizable as clear-cut instances of learning. Although this work is downplayed in the research literature, describing it is critical to properly understanding lab work as an educational practice. With a focus on the negotiation of disciplined perception, we analyze a number of episodes wherein a pair of students and an instructor struggle with the construction and interpretation of a graph depicting a linear relationship between force and acceleration. We demonstrate an intimate interplay between how the students display their problems and understandings and how the instructor tries to make the subject matter content visible and thus learnable. The analyzed episodes are illuminating with regard to the analytical notion of disciplined perception as applied to graph interpretation; the cognitive and practical competencies involved in producing, recognizing, and understanding graphs in mechanics; and the interactive work by which these competencies are made into objects of learning and instruction.This study examines the practical work of two students and an instructor occupied with a mechanics lab assignment. Taking an analytical perspective founded on ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967(Garfinkel, , 2002Livingston, 1986) and conversation analysis (e.g., Sacks, 1992;Schegloff, 2007), this study describes and discusses a type of interactional sequence that we refer to as dark matter. In a discussion of the difference between the findings of conversation analysis and those of classical so-

Although the production and recognition of social actions have been central concerns for conversation analysis (CA) from the outset, it has recently been argued that CA is yet to develop a systematic analysis of ‘action formation’. As a partial remedy to this situation, John Heritage introduces ‘epistemic status’, which he claims is an unavoidable component of the production and recognition of social action. His proposal addresses the question how is social action produced and recognized? by reference to another question how is relative knowledge recognized? Despite the importance placed on the latter question, it is not clear how it is to be answered in particular cases. We argue that the introduction of epistemic status builds on a reformulation of the action formation problem that unnecessarily de-emphasizes the importance of the sequential environment. Our re-analyses of key sequences cast doubts on the empirical grounding of the epistemic program, and question whether the fundamental role of epistemic status has been convincingly demonstrated.

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