The DQI was initially developed to measure the discourse quality of speech acts in parliamentary debates. To be applied to experiments with ordinary citizens, as in the current book, the DQI had to be somewhat modified and also to be adapted to the local context of the experiments. As with the initial DQI, the units of analysis to be coded are the individual speech acts. If a speech act is briefly interrupted (just a few seconds) and the speaker continues afterwards, this counts as a single speech act. The interruption also counts as a speech act.

Nature of speech act

1. Interruption: speaker interrupts another speaker with a few utterances of not more than a few seconds.

2. Regular speech act: all other speeches, including briel y interrupted speech acts.

Participation (length of time)

Code in minutes and seconds the length of the speech act.

Participation (constraints)

1. The speaker indicates verbally or by body language that he or she is constrained by the behavior of other participants (interruptions, private conversations, body language such as making faces, yawning, etc.).

2. The speaker can speak in an unconstrained way.