In 2018, we overheard many CEEA-AGEC members stating that they have "found their people"; this led us to wonder what makes this evolving community unique. Using cultural historical activity theory to view the proceedings of CEEA-ACEG 2004-2018 in comparison with the geographically and intellectually adjacent ASEE, we used both machine-driven (Natural Language Processing, NLP) and human-driven (literature review of the proceedings) methods. Here, we hoped to build on surveys—most recently by Nelson and Brennan (2018)—to understand, beyond what members say about themselves, what makes the CEEA-AGEC community distinct, where it has come from, and where it is going.
Engaging in the two methods of data collection quickly diverted our focus from an analysis of the data themselves to the characteristics of the data in terms of cultural historical activity theory. Our preliminary findings point to some unique characteristics of machine- and human-driven results, with the former, as might be expected, focusing on the micro-level (words and language patterns) and the latter on the macro-level (ideas and concepts). NLP generated data within the realms of "community" and "division of labour" while the review of proceedings centred on "subject" and "object"; both found "instruments," although NLP with greater granularity. With this new understanding of the relative strengths of each method, we have a revised framework for addressing our original question.
NLP commercialisation in the last 25 years
