Students' views of collaboration and online participation in Knowledge Forum

This study examined students’ views of collaboration and learning, and investigated how these predict students’ online participation in a computer-supported learning environment. The participants were 521 secondary school students in Hong Kong, who took part in online collaborative inquiry conducted using Knowledge Forum™. We developed a questionnaire to assess the students’ views of their collaboration aligned with the knowledge-building perspective. We also administered the Learning Process Questionnaire to examine their preferred approaches to learning. The students’ online participation in Knowledge Forum was examined using the Analytic Toolkit software. Analyses indicated that students who viewed their collaboration as more aligned with collaborative knowledge building were more likely to employ a deep approach to learning. A structural equation model indicated that the students’ views of collaboration exerted a direct effect on online participation in Knowledge Forum and mediated the effects of deep approaches on forum participation. Implications of examining students’ views of collaboration for productive online participation are discussed.     

When groups decide to use asynchronous online discussions: collaborative learning and social presence under a voluntary participation structure

The purpose of this study is to explore how groups decide to use asynchronous online discussion forums in a non-mandatory setting, and, after the group decision is made, how group members use online discussion forums to complete a collaborative learning project requiring complex data gathering and research processes. While a large body of research on computer-mediated communication (CMC) has documented successful intervention strategies to promote and sustain online discussion forums, little of the research has examined the use of online discussion forums in voluntarily contexts, wherein the decision to use online discussion forums is a personal decision and participation is not a graded component. This study approaches the research questions using a naturalistic case study of one graduate-level blended learning course with 55 students. Employing both student interviews and content analysis methods, this study revealed that the factors affecting the group decision to use online discussion forums are (1) successful or unsuccessful experiences during the first trial, (2) perceived affordances of CMC tools, and (3) the interplay between the nature of collaborative tasks and perceived efficiency. The content analysis of online postings in two voluntary groups revealed that when groups decided to use online discussion forums, participation levels were almost equal among individual group members, and discussion threads were sustained until the final completion of the collaborative project.     

Gender-related differences in computer-mediated communication and computer-supported collaborative learning

Abstract   A question associated with the introduction of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is whether all participants profit equally from working in CSCL environments. This article reports on a review study into gender-related differences in participation in CSCL. As many of the processes in CSCL are similar to those in computer-mediated communication (CMC), studies into CMC are also included in the review. Male dominance is found to play a role in many CMC settings. A learning culture with an explicit focus on participation by all students seems to be related to a more gender-balanced participation in CMC, however. A tendency for boys to be more active participants than girls is also present in CSCL environments, but it is less pronounced than in CMC. This may be explained by the fact that participation is explicitly promoted in most CSCL environments. Gender differences in the character of students' contributions are found in both CMC and CSCL. It is concluded that in order to avoid gender-stereotyped participation and communication patterns, it is necessary to explicitly address inclusiveness as an aspect of a collaborative classroom culture. A plea is made for further research into differential participation by students in CSCL, and the effects thereof on cognitive and affective learning outcomes. Research should also focus on the question how classroom cultures can be promoted that support active participation of all students aimed at collaborative knowledge construction.     

Investigating cooperation and collaboration in near synchronous computer mediated conferences

The development and use of computer mediated communications as a tool for teaching and learning has grown considerably in recent years. It has been developed to extend the conventional face-to-face tutorial environment and for distance-learning purposes, actively engaging students in productive learning situations. Here we document the findings of an analysis of near synchronous conferencing where postgraduate distance learners worked in small groups to produce a report that examined media coverage of controversial science. The results suggest that students actively engaged in both cooperative and collaborative learning in preparing and producing these reports, and that tutor interventions were an important factor in influencing peer interaction. Furthermore, we have found evidence of cooperation between learners who passively participate in vicarious learning. We consider the implications of these findings with respect to current definitions of cooperation and collaboration.     

Adapting and personalizing the communication in a synchronous communication tool

Abstract   In this paper, we present a synchronous text-based communication tool, referred to as Adaptive Communication Tool (ACT), which provides capabilities for adaptation and personalization. ACT supports both the free and the structured form of dialogue. The structured dialogue is implemented by two types of Scaffolding Sentence Templates (SST); i.e. sentence openers or communicative acts. The capability of adaptation is considered in the sense of making suggestions for the supported form of dialogue and SST type and providing the most meaningful and complete set of SST with respect to the learning outcomes addressed by the collaborative learning activity and the model of collaboration followed by the group members. Also, ACT enables learners to have control on the adaptation by selecting the form of dialogue and the SST type they prefer to use and enriching the provided SST set with their own ones in order to cover their communication needs. The results from the formative evaluation of the tool showed that (i) the proposed dialogue form, SST type and the provided set of SST cover students' communication needs, (ii) the capability of personalizing the communication by selecting the desired communication means as well as by enriching the provided SST set satisfied students, and (iii) students used adequately both types of SST resulting into on-task and coherent dialogues.     

Content and processes in problem-based learning: a comparison of computer-mediated and face-to-face communication

Abstract  There has been an increasing interest in the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) in problem-based learning. One line of research has been to introduce synchronous, or simultaneous, communication attempting to create text-based digital real-time interaction. Compared with face-to-face (F2F) communication, CMC may be a poorer medium regarding coordination of the activity. Still, we are in need for more knowledge on the possible advantages and problems regarding such digital communication processes. In the present study, we compared activities in digital and F2F problem-based learning (PBL) regarding the content of the communication, turn-taking processes and the emergence of learning issues. The results indicate that when students discussed in the digital learning environment, they focused more on technical and organizational questions, produced relatively more initiatives but less responses, and produced less elaborated and specified learning issues than when they participated in F2F meetings.     

Encouraging equitable online participation through curriculum articulation

Student participation is a central issue in debates around online education. In most instances, course convenors wish to increase the amount of participation, while ensuring that the quality is of an acceptable standard. They also wish to ensure that their students have adequate access to the technology, and that there is no undue dominance by any groups of students. In order to achieve the desired degree and balance of participation, various strategies are pursued—most of these focus on the awarding or denial of marks. In this exercise, first year Health Sciences students were introduced to online discussions as part of an Information Technology/Information Literacy (IT/IL) stream in their curriculum. Most importantly, the nature of the participation was to be guided purely by the philosophy and content of the main Health Sciences curriculum, with no overt reward or punishment system for participation in the online discussions. An analysis of the number of postings and the spread of postings shows an acceptable level of equitable participation across the student body. The main conclusion is that effective participation in online discussions is possible by curriculum articulation.     

The role of social presence in learner-centered communicative language learning using synchronous computer-mediated communication: Experimental study

This study aimed to clarify the relationship between media, learners’ perception of social presence, and output in communicative learning using synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). In this study, we developed four types of SCMC: videoconferencing (image and voice), audioconferencing (voice but no image), text chat with image (image but no voice), and plain text chat (no image and no voice). Each system allows learners to be conscious of and utter a target formulaic expression. I investigated the effect of each system on psychological perception and productive output as well as the relationship between perception and output. The results show that image and voice promote consciousness of natural communication and relief, while a text-mediated system enhances confidence in grammatical accuracy. In order to clarify the relationship between media, affective side, and output, path analysis was conducted using SPSS Amos 7.0. The results indicated that voice communication strongly affects both learners’ affective side and output. The existence of a partner’s image enhances the consciousness of natural communication, which leads to a number of self-corrections, an aspect of learning performance. However, voice communication has a negative effect on confidence in grammatical accuracy.     

A study of social participation and knowledge sharing in the teachers' online professional community of practice

To facilitate professional development of teachers in the online context, the online community of practice (CoPs) has become an important platform in which individuals with similar interests or common goals get together to share their resources, develop working strategies, solve problems, and improve individual as well as organizational performance. In this study, we have collected self-reported knowledge-sharing behaviors from 321 members of the largest online professional CoP of teachers in Taiwan. The results show that closer connections among online CoP members can lead to greater recognition of and altruism towards others. Moreover, performance expectation and self-efficacy belief play essential roles in knowledge-sharing participation. Thus, the development of social relationships among online teacher members helps them obtain potential resources and reliable support through their social network. Also, teachers' membership in the online professional CoP fosters a prosocial attitude that heightens their willingness to share useful resources and solve other members' problems, both emotionally and instrumentally. Consequently, knowledge-sharing behaviors, in terms of knowledge giving and knowing receiving, are significantly predicted by prosocial commitment and performance expectation respectively. The implications to both research and practice are provided in this paper.     

What is online learner participation? A literature review

It is commonly argued that a key challenge for e-learning is to encourage learner participation. Even though this challenge has received increased attention by researchers, little effort has been put into developing a sound theoretical understanding of what online participation actually is and how it may be studied empirically. This paper examines the conceptions and research approaches that underlie research on online participation in e-learning settings. A classification scheme was iteratively developed and used when publications on the topic were reviewed. It was found that research is dominated by low-level conceptions of online participation, which relies on frequency counts as measures of participation. However, some researchers aim to study more complex dimensions of participation, such as whether participants feel they are taking part and are engaged in dialogues, reflected by using a combination of perceived and actual measures of participation. In conclusion, a definition of online learner participation that acknowledges its more complex dimensions, such as doing, communicating, thinking, feeling, and belonging, is proposed.     

Developing complex group products: Idea combination in computer-mediated and face-to-face groups

This study examines how group experience, communication medium, and strategies for combining individual ideas influence the integrative complexity of group products. Each week for six weeks, members of 31 work groups wrote individual essays about their group tasks and experiences, and then collaborated on a group essay on the same topic. Results indicate that in the later weeks of the study, computer-mediated groups produce essays with higher integrative complexity than those of face-to-face groups. The integrative complexity of essays in later weeks is a joint function of the complexity of member ideas and the number of members who participate directly in writing the essay (scribes). The greater complexity of computer-mediated groups' essays in the later weeks of the study is partly accounted for by their use of more scribes and their inclusion of more unique member ideas.     

The potential of synchronous communication to enhance participation in online discussions: A case study of two e-learning courses

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been adopted in most e-learning settings. However, few research studies have considered the effect of different CMC. This study examined how and why synchronous communication affected participation in online discussions. Two online classes that participated in two asynchronous and two synchronous online discussions were examined. Actual and perceived measures of participation indicated that synchronous communication induced personal participation, which could be regarded as a complement to cognitive participation. Personal participation involves more intense interaction better supported by synchronous communication while cognitive participation is a more reflective type of participation supported by asynchronous communication. In synchronous discussions, the e-learners felt that they worked together and were not restricted to only discuss course content. This was likely to induce arousal and motivation and increased convergence on meaning, especially in small groups.     

Influence of participation, facilitator styles, and metacognitive reflection on knowledge building in online university courses

Understanding how to foster knowledge building in online and blended learning environments is a key for computer-supported collaborative learning research. Knowledge building is a deeply constructivist pedagogy and kind of inquiry learning focused on theory building. A strong indicator of engagement in knowledge building activity is the socio-cognitive dynamic of epistemic agency, in which students exercise a higher level of agency for setting forth their ideas and negotiating fit with those of others rather than relying on their teacher. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of (a) levels of participation, (b) facilitator styles and (c) metacognitive reflection on knowledge building in two blended, post-secondary education contexts. A study of a total of 67 undergraduate students suggest that high levels of participation, a supportive facilitator style, and ample opportunities for metacognitive reflection on the students’ own participation strategies are most conducive for fostering epistemic agency for knowledge building. Implications of these results for research and instructional design of online courses are discussed.     

Group differences in computer supported collaborative learning: Evidence from patterns of Taiwanese students’ online communication

This study explored the differences among online elementary school student groups based on their communication features. Two hundred and ninety-one Taiwanese students, ranging in age from 11 to 12 years old, participated in this study. The students were randomly arranged within-class into three-member groups. Each group was asked to use a collaborative learning system to accomplish a group task generating a shared concept map. The textual discussions in each group during collaboration were collected, coded, categorized, and quantified to profile their communication characteristics. Cluster analysis on the resulting communication characteristics resulted in four types of small student groups, including passive or reticent, frequently off-task, actively participating, and knowledge emphasizing. Most student groups (56%) were found to be relatively passive or reticent. Frequently off-task student groups made a protrusive amount of messages for off-task social purposes. The actively participating student groups were characterized by abundant discussion, particularly for continuing task, managing procedure and coordinating efforts. The distinctive feature of knowledge emphasizing student groups was that they devoted particular attention to task related knowledge. In addition, they performed better in task accomplishment.     

Patterns of female and male students' participation in peer interaction in computer-supported learning

The purpose of the study was to analyze how intensively female and male students participate in discourse interaction within two computer-supported classrooms. Technical infrastructure for the study was provided by the Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environments (CSILE). The study was carried out by qualitatively analyzing written notes logged by two grade 5/6 classes to CSILE's database over one academic year. The results of the study indicate that only one of the classrooms engaged in a progressive discourse focused on collaborative advancement of explanation whereas the other classroom performed more traditional learning tasks. Female students participated most actively in the progressive-discourse classroom whereas male students dominated discourse interaction in the other class, but the reasons for this are subject to debate. The investigators argue that the use of new technology should be thoroughly subsumed under pedagogical goals in order to facilitate female students' participation in computer-supported learning.     

A visualisation tool to aid exploration of students’ interactions in asynchronous online communication

Much research in recent years has focused on the introduction of virtual learning environments (VLEs) to universities, documenting practice, and sharing experience ( [Armitage et?al., 2001], [Browne and Jenkins, 2003], [Moron-Garcia, 2004] and [Weller, 2007]). Attention has been directed towards the importance of online dialogue for learning as a defining feature of the VLE.Communicative tools are an important means by which VLEs have the potential to transform learning with computers from being passive and transmissive in nature, to being active and constructivist (Pavey & Garland, 2004). However, practical methods of reviewing and analysing online communication to trace cycles of real dialogue (and learning) have proved somewhat elusive. Qualitative methods are also under-used for VLE discussions, since they demand new sets of research skills for those unfamiliar with them, and can be time intensive.This paper describes a visualisation tool to aid the analysis of online communication. The tool has two purposes: first, it can be used on a day-to-day basis by teachers or forum moderators to review the development of a discussion and to support appropriate interventions. Second, the tool can support research activities since the visualisations generated provide the basis for further qualitative and quantitative analysis of online dialogue.The visualisation software is designed to encode interaction types simply and quickly. The software was tested and then used to analyse data from a sample of forums within the Moodle VLE. The paper discusses both the method of visualisation and analysis of the online interactions as a pilot for further research analysing interaction in discussion forums.     

Online engagement during COVID-19: Role of agency on collaborative learning orientation and learning expectations

During the COVID-19 outbreak, students had to cope with succeeding in video-conferencing classes susceptible to technical problems like choppy audio, frozen screens and poor Internet connection, leading to interrupted delivery of facial expressions and eye-contact. For these reasons, agentic engagement during video-conferencing became critical for successful learning outcomes. This study explores the mediating effect agentic engagement has on collaborative language learning orientations (CLLO) within an EFL video-conferencing course to understand better how interactions influence academic learning expectations. A total of 329 (Male = 132, Female = 197) students were recruited from four South Korean universities to participate in this questionnaire study. Data analysis was carried out using the statistical software packages SPSS, and a series of data screening procedures were carried out. Findings revealed that collaborative language learning orientations were a statistically significant predictor of academic learning expectations, but this relationship was fully mediated when agentic engagement was added to the model. Students with a propensity for social language learning strategies believe they will succeed; however, this relationship is explained by their propensity to interact with the instructor when video-conferencing. An assortment of learning activities should be provided to support both collaborative and individual learning orientations for academic success. Students with collaborative learning tendencies and a propensity to actively engage the instructor during video conference classes are active participants in the eLearning context, possibly leading to positive course expectations.     

Supporting the development of synchronous text-based computer-mediated communication with an intelligent diagnosis tool

To date, a look at the scientific literature on the construction and use of synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) support environments reveals that most researchers have focused either on exchanging information or on constructing and presenting posts. In this work, an intelligent collaborative synchronous CMC platform that detects whether the learners address the expected discussion issues is proposed. The concept maps related to the learning topics are first outlined by the instructor. After each learner issues a post on the synchronous CMC platform, a feature selection approach is adopted to derive the input parameters of a one-class Support Vector Machines (SVMs) classifier. The classifier then determines if the learners’ posts are related to the concept maps previously outlined by the instructor. Meanwhile, learner peers from the same group are asked to provide comments on the synchronous CMCs, and a group grading module is established in this work to evaluate the quality of the synchronous CMCs. If the evaluation results from the classifier and the group grading module are inconsistent, the instructor or the teaching assistant is consulted to verify the evaluation results. Notably, a feedback rule construction mechanism is used to issue feedback messages to learners in cases where the synchronous CMC support system detects that the learners have strayed astray from the expected learning topics in their posts. The classification rates for the one-class SVM classifier can reach up to 97.06%, and the average pre-test and post-test grades were 51.94 and 66.77, respectively, which revealed that the junior high school students participating in synchronous CMC activities related to natural science were benefited by the proposed intelligent synchronous CMC platform.     

Analyzing the social knowledge construction behavioral patterns of an online synchronous collaborative discussion instructional activity using an instant messaging tool: A case study

Online discussions have been widely utilized as an educational activity, and much research has been conducted on the process and behaviors involved in asynchronous discussions. However, research on behavioral patterns in learners’ synchronous discussions, including the process of social knowledge construction and project coordination is limited. Through the examination of the behavioral patterns and differences between students with high- and low-quality discussions, it may be possible to understand the limitations of knowledge construction in synchronous discussions. Furthermore, these findings may help teachers design and guide synchronous discussions activities. This study is an empirical case study in which college students conducted synchronous discussions based on topics specified by the teacher. The students used a text-based instant messaging (IM) tool in a period of 98 days.