Predicting social cues during online discussions: Effects of evaluations and knowledge content

This study examined whether evaluations (agreements, disagreements), knowledge content (new ideas, justifications), or social cues (SCs) in recent messages affected a current message’s positive or negative SC during asynchronous, online discussions. Using statistical discourse analysis, we modeled 894 messages by 183 participants on 60 high school mathematics topics (typically eight people posted per topic) on a mathematics problem solving website not connected to any class or school. Results showed that recent agreements increased the likelihood of positive SC, whereas justifications reduced it. Disagreements increased the likelihood of negative SC, whereas new ideas reduced it. Meanwhile, recent positive or negative SCs did not affect the likelihood of a subsequent SC. Together, these results suggest that judicious use of positive SCs rather than negative SCs during disagreements can help students both construct knowledge and maintain social relationships.     

Online discussion processes: Effects of earlier messages’ evaluations,knowledge content,social cues and personal information on later messages

This study of the flow of online discussions examined how earlier messages affected later messages along five dimensions: (1) evaluations (agreement, disagreement, or unresponsive actions); (2) knowledge content (contribution, repetition, or null content); (3) social cues (positive, negative, or none); (4) personal information (number of visits); and (5) elicitation (eliciting response or not). Using sequential logit regressions and a structural equation model (SEM), this study analyzed 131 messages across seven topics in the mathematics forum of a university Bulletin Board System (BBS) Website. Results showed that a disagreement or contribution in the previous message increased the likelihoods of disagreements and social cue displays in the current message. Unlike face-to-face discussions, online discussion messages that disagreed with an earlier message were more likely to elicit responses. Together, these results support the claims that teachers can use and manage online discussions at the message level to promote critical thinking, facilitate discussion of controversial topics, and reduce status effects.     

Collaborative argumentation and justifications: A statistical discourse analysis of online discussions

As justifications (such as evidence or explanations) are central to productive argumentation, this study examines how the discourse moves of students engaged in collaborative learning are related to their justifications during computer mediated communication (CMC). Twenty-four students posted 131 messages on Knowledge Forum, an online collaborative learning environment. These messages were coded and analyzed with a multiple outcome, multilevel logit, vector autoregression. When students disagreed or made claims, they were more likely to use evidence. After a student made an alternative claim, the next student posting a message was less likely to use evidence. When students made claims, disagreed, disagreed with other’s justifications, or read more messages, they were more likely to use explanations. Boys were more likely than girls to make new claims. Together, these results suggest that discourse moves and sequences are linked to justifications on online forums.     

E-recruitment and the benefits of organizational web appeal

This study examined the influences of website design on prospective job seekers. A total of 182 participants accessed and reviewed an online job ad. Afterwards, they rated: (a) the attractiveness of the ad’s formatting, (b) the usability of the website, (c) overall evaluations of the organization’s web appeal, (d) impressions of the organization, and (e) willingness to pursue employment with the hiring organization. Although both the formatting attractiveness and usability of online recruitment materials influenced participants’ inclinations to pursue jobs, formatting was more important than usability. Moreover, impressions of the employer mediated the relationship between satisfaction with the website and willingness to pursue employment with the organization. Overall, this research advances knowledge by applying signaling theory to the web-based recruitment domain and by testing a mediated relationship implied therein. In addition, this is the first study to introduce relative weights analysis to the recruitment literature.     

Students' abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts: The role of internet-specific epistemic justifications

Previous evaluation studies have rarely used authentic online texts and investigated upper secondary school students' use of evaluation criteria and deep reasoning. The associations between internet-specific epistemic justifications for knowing and credibility evaluation of online texts are not yet fully understood among adolescents. This study investigated upper secondary school students' (N = 372) abilities to evaluate self-selected authentic online texts and the role of internet-specific epistemic justifications in students' evaluation performance when solving a health-related information problem. Students selected three texts with Google Custom Search Engine and evaluated their credibility. Students' evaluation performance across the three texts was determined according to the different aspects evaluated (author, venue, intentions, evidence and corroboration) and the depth of their evaluations. Students also filled in the Internet-Specific Epistemic Justifications (ISEJ) inventory previously validated with pre-service teachers. The results revealed considerable differences in students' abilities to evaluate online texts. Students' beliefs in justification by authority and justification by multiple sources positively predicted their evaluation performance similarly in both topics. The findings suggest that the ISEJ inventory is also valid for upper secondary school students. Students should be explicitly taught to evaluate different credibility aspects and scaffolded to deeply engage with online information.     

Listening to Natural and Synthesized Speech while Driving: Effects on User Performance

The effects of message type (navigation, E-mail, news story), voice type (text-to-speech, natural human speech), and earcon cueing (present, absent) on message comprehension and driving performance were examined. Twenty-four licensed drivers (12 under 30, 12 over 65, both equally divided by gender) participated in the experiment. They drove the UMTRI driving simulator on a road consisting of straight sections and constant radius curves, thus yielding two levels of low driving-workload. In addition, as a control condition, data were collected while participants were parked. In all conditions, participants were presented with three types of messages. Each message was immediately followed by a series of questions to assess comprehension. Navigation messages were about 4 seconds long (about 9 words). E-mail messages were about 40 seconds long (about 100 words) and news messages were about 80 seconds long (about 225 words). For all message types, comprehension of text-to-speech messages, as determined by accuracy of response to questions, and by subjective ratings, was significantly worse than comprehension of natural speech (79 versus 83 percent correct answers; 7.7/10 versus 8.6/10 subjective rating). Driving workload did not affect comprehension. Interestingly, neither the speech used (synthesized or natural) nor the message type (navigation, E-mail, news) had a significant effect on basic driving performance measured by the standard deviations of lateral lane position and steering wheel angle.     

Examining students’ online interaction in a live video streaming environment using data mining and text mining

This study analyses the online questions and chat messages automatically recorded by a live video streaming (LVS) system using data mining and text mining techniques. We apply data mining and text mining techniques to analyze two different datasets and then conducted an in-depth correlation analysis for two educational courses with the most online questions and chat messages respectively. The study found the discrepancies as well as similarities in the students’ patterns and themes of participation between online questions (student–instructor interaction) and online chat messages (student–students interaction or peer interaction). The results also identify disciplinary differences in students’ online participation. A correlation is found between the number of online questions students asked and students’ final grades. The data suggests that a combination of using data mining and text mining techniques for a large amount of online learning data can yield considerable insights and reveal valuable patterns in students’ learning behaviors. Limitations with data and text mining were also revealed and discussed in the paper.     

The power of eWOM: A re-examination of online student evaluations of their professors

Over the past few years, a number of studies have examined the impact of the Rate My Professors (RMP) website (RateMyProfessors.com) on higher education. The focal area of examination is whether students’ evaluations of their professors on RMP are valid. The current study attempts to push the RMP discussions to a deeper level through two studies. Study 1 illustrates that students rely on the valence of review information on RMP to make their course selection decisions without considering its validity. Study 2 shows that students’ decision-making process tends to be biased as a result of review information available. The results of both studies suggest it is necessary for institutions to test new teaching evaluation models online.     

Moderation, Response Rate, and Message Interactivity: Features of Online Communities and Their Effects on Intent to Participate

We conducted two experiments to explore how moderation, response rate, and message interactivity affected people’s intent to participate in a web‐based online community. In our first experiment, 62 participants observed either a moderated or an unmoderated online community and answered questions about their intent to participate in the community. The participants who viewed the moderated community reported significantly higher intent to participate than participants who viewed the unmoderated community. In our second experiment, 59 participants observed a different online community in which we manipulated both the rate (in time) of posted comments and the interactivity of each comment. We derived our manipulation of interactivity from Rafaeli’s (1988) definition of interactivity as message contingency. Participants reported significantly greater intent to participate in an online community featuring interactive messages, but only when response rate was slow. These results indicate that both structural features of interfaces and content features of interactions affect people’s intent to participate in online communities.     

Exploration of an e-learning model to foster critical thinking on basic science concepts during work placements

We designed an e-learning model to promote critical thinking about basic science topics in online communities of students during work placements in higher education. To determine the effectiveness and efficiency of the model we explored the online discussions in two case studies. We evaluated the quantity of the interactions by looking at quantitative data of the discussion ‘threads’ and we evaluated the quality of the discussion by content analysis of the individual messages. Both the procedural facilitation of the discussion and the instrument for content analysis were based on Garrison’s ‘Practical Inquiry model of Cognitive Presence’. Furthermore, we explored the experiences of the students and moderators by interviewing them and we organised their perceptions using the framework of an activity system. On the basis of the quantitative and qualitative data we conclude that the e-learning model was successful in establishing a dialogue among a group of students and an expert during work placements at different locations. The ‘Practical Inquiry model’ was useful in facilitating a sustained on-topic discourse involving critical thinking. Although the amount of critical thinking was moderate, the results suggest ways to increase integration and resolution activities in the online discussions.     

Inducing attitude change toward online gaming among adolescent players based on dissonance theory: The role of threats and justification of effort

The negative impact of online gaming on adolescents has received much attention. The question of how to reduce their pathological use of online gaming is a critical issue. Based on the concept of external justification in dissonance theory, this experimental study aimed to examine whether severity of threat and justification of effort would impact adolescent players’ attitude change toward online gaming and their subjective estimations of online gaming addiction. The results echoed predictions from classic studies in dissonance theory. When participants engaged in attitude–discrepant behavior, i.e., persuading other adolescents that an apparently interesting online game is not fun at all, their attitudes toward online gaming shifted more dramatically to the negative side in the context of a low level of threat rather than a high level of threat. Additionally, the magnitude of attitude change was more prominent when participants exerted more rather than less effort to engage in attitude–discrepant behavior. Moreover, a similar pattern of participants’ evaluations of the likelihood of online gaming addiction was also observed. The findings show that dissonance theory has the potential to be useful for inducing adolescent players to disengage in online gaming.     

Social sentiment sensor: a visualization system for topic detection and topic sentiment analysis on microblog

As a new form of social media, microblogging provides platform sharing, wherein users can share their feelings and ideas on certain topics. Bursty topics from microblogs are the results of the emerging issues that instantly attract more followers and more attention online, which provide a unique opportunity to gauge the relation between expressed public sentiment and hot topics. This paper presents a Social Sentiment Sensor (SSS) system on Sina Weibo to detect daily hot topics and analyze the sentiment distributions toward these topics. SSS includes two main techniques, namely, hot topic detection and topic-oriented sentiment analysis. Hot topic detection aims to detect the most popular topics online based on the following steps, topic detection, topic clustering, and topic popularity ranking. We extracted topics from the hashtags using a hashtag filtering model because they can cover almost all the topics. Then, we cluster the topics that describe the same issue, and rank the topic clusters via their popularity to exploit the final hot topics. Topic-oriented sentiment analysis aims to analyze public opinions toward the hot topics. After retrieving the topic-related messages, we recognize sentiment for each message using a state-of-the-art SVM (Support Vector Machine) sentiment classifier. Then, we summarize the sentiments for the hot topic to achieve topic sentiment distribution. Based on the above framework and algorithms, SSS produces a real-time visualization system to monitor social sentiments, which is offering the public a new and timely perspective on the dynamics of the social topics.     

An analysis of students’ spontaneous computer-mediated help seeking: A step toward the design of ecologically valid supporting tools

This study analyzes middle school students’ spontaneous mathematics-related help-seeking behavior, in view of making ecologically valid recommendations for the design of supporting tools or “help systems”. Our aim was to investigate the content of students’ help-seeking messages – Are there different forms of help-seeking messages and do they evolve with age? We used the archives of a French forum that provides students with free individualized help in mathematics. The data consisted of 206 messages sent by French middle school students over a period of 42 months. The constituent categories of the messages were identified. The results showed that not all middle school students use the same help-seeking “format”. Compared to sixth graders, ninth graders wrote messages containing more constituent categories, i.e., they provided the online expert with more kinds of information. A detailed analysis of the categories further showed that older students’ messages more often contained explicit help requests and contextual information than did younger students’ messages. Thus, the messages of the oldest students (age 15) were both cognitively more understandable and socially more acceptable than those of the youngest students (age 11). The interpretation of these findings and their implications for designing help systems are discussed.     

The atmospheric factors of online storefront environment design: An empirical experiment in Taiwan

The purpose of our study was to identify the effect of atmospheric factors such as music and color on participants’ emotional responses and subsequent shopping behavior in an online store setting. In this study, a laboratory experiment was conducted to test our hypotheses. The experiment was a 2 (music: fast/slow) × 2 (color: warm/cool) between-subjects factorial design with one control group. The results indicated that both music and color factors had a significant effect on participants’ emotional response, which in turn influenced their intention to purchase. Specifically, participants felt more aroused and experienced greater pleasure when they were exposed to fast-tempo music and a warm color website than those people who experienced slow-tempo music and cool colors. In addition, both pleasure and arousal emotions were significant predictors of approach–avoidance intention. We expected that a well-designed website with adequate music and color attributes would create a desired environment and thus entice and retain target customers. Our findings should help in deciding on ambient factors in online website design. Although studies on atmospheric effects in traditional stores have been abundant, knowledge of their effect in the online retail context has been sparse.     

Introducing synchronous e-discussion tools in co-located classrooms: A study on the experiences of ‘active’ and ‘silent’ secondary school students

Even though the advantages of online discussions over face-to-face discussion formats have been extensively discussed and investigated, the blending of synchronous online discussion tools in co-located classroom settings has been considered with far less intensity. In this paper, we report on secondary school students’ experiences and preferences concerning two different discussion formats for critical debate in co-located classroom settings: face-to-face and synchronous, computer-mediated communication (CMC). Data was collected with the help of self-report questionnaires (N = 70) and structured interviews (N = 4). A differentiation was made between students that define themselves as active participants in face-to-face classroom discussions and those who usually remain silent in these settings. The findings highlight several potential advantages of the computer-mediated discussion format, especially in terms of the social-interactive and managerial aspects of classroom discussions. Comparisons between the two groups show that ‘silent’ students welcome the introduction of CMC with enthusiasm, whereas ‘active’ students do not show a clear preference. Practical implications as well as new directions for further research are discussed.     

Confirmation Bias in Online Searches: Impacts of Selective Exposure Before an Election on Political Attitude Strength and Shifts

Impacts of Internet use on political information seeking and subsequent processes have been subject to much debate. A 2‐session online field study presented online search results on political topics to examine selective exposure and its attitudinal impacts. Session 1 captured attitudes, including their accessibility. Session 2 tracked what online search results participants selected and how long they read them; participants then reported attitudes again. The study represented a 4x8x2x2 within‐subjects design: 4 topics, 8 browsing intervals each, with articles presenting opposing stances, with low versus high source credibility. Attitude‐consistent messages and messages from high‐credibility sources were preferred. Exposure to attitude‐consistent search results increased attitude accessibility and reinforced attitudes, whereas exposure to attitude‐discrepant content had opposite effects, regardless of messages' source credibility.     

Trust transference in brick and click retailers: An investigation of the before-online-visit phase

We examined the formation of online trust encountered by potential customers of a brick and click retailer before they visit its online website; this phase of the purchasing experience has been under-investigated in trust literature. Since a brick and click retailer is eager to attract offline customers to its website based on trust in the brick and mortar stores, our exploratory study investigated, (1) Can customers’ offline trust in a retailer affect their online trust (in the website operations of the retailer)?; (2) What other factors might be influential on online trust? A social relations and networks perspective was adopted to explain customers’ online trust formation during the before-online-visit phase. Findings from a sample of 246 offline customers who had never visited a supermarket's website revealed that word-of-mouth, offline trust, and expected sanctioning power were significant in forming online trust. Furthermore, findings showed that word-of-mouth was more influential than offline trust based on a customers’ personal experience with the supermarket's physical stores. This provided empirical evidence on how and why some pure online retailers outperformed brick and click retailers.