Student practices

Peters, V., & Hewitt,J. (2010)

An investigation of student practices in asynchronous computer conferencing courses.

Computers & Education, 54(4), 951-961

Moment by moment participation

‘Little is known about the moment-to-moment behaviours of students as they participate in asynchronous discussions’.

‘Both social presence and transactional distance focus heavily on how students perceive, and interact with, their instructor and classmates.

These constructs have proven to be useful for studying collaborative processes within online environments, but they fail to explain,

on a more fundamental level, what students actually do when they login to a computer conferencing course, and why they do it.’

Aim

to better understand these processes. ‘For example, when students log onto a conference, how do they decide which messages to read? How do they decide which messages to respond to? What are their goals, and what kinds of strategies do they develop to reach those goals? In short, how do students

navigate the complex world of a computer conferencing course?10 Interviews’

Methods

Interviews and a questionnaire; graduate students

Results

Two major themes emerged from the analysis of the transcripts: Overload (strategies-participate frequently, skim messages, focus on a single thread, read messages selectively) and Insecurity. ( strategies for making a positive impression on the instructor, participate early, try to figure out what the instructor wants to hear, focus on your interests, sound knowledgeable)

Conclusions p959

‘This study investigated the online behaviours of students enrolled in graduate-level distance education courses. Analyses of the data

identified a number of practices that students routinely employ when participating in a computer conference. More often than not, these

strategies were aimed at more effectively meeting course participation requirements. In light of the findings, it can be argued that students

are frequently motivated to participate in ways that emphasize workflow efficiency over advancing their understandings about course top-ics. In their interview and questionnaire responses, students did not discuss learning-related challenges, but rather focussed on the practical

challenges of reading large numbers of messages and writing messages that would help them secure a good participation grade. Many

of the strategies developed to accomplish these tasks (e.g., skimming or ignoring messages, writing about what you already know) arguably

serve to subvert learning goals rather than support them. Collectively, the practices identified in this research suggest that students may

not be fully realizing the constructivist affordances of asynchronous online discussions. To encourage students to engage in productive collaborative

exchanges in a computer conference, it may be necessary to restructure the design of CMC courses and software in ways that

focus students’ attention on learning outcomes rather than participation outcomes.

participant level analysis

Wise, A., Perera, N., Hsiao,Y-T., Speer, J., Marbouti, F. (2011)

Microanalytic case studies of individual participation patterns in an asynchronous online discussion in an undergraduate blended course

Internet and Higher Education

doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2011.11.007

Looks at temporility and individuality cf aggregated data

p1 ( of online version)

‘Despite the importance placed on asynchronicity only limited research has investigated online discussions from a temporal perspective (Dringus & Ellis, 2010)’

‘Research has not yet probed in detail the individual experience of participation in asynchronous discussions over time’

p2(of online version)

‘the majority of research on how students interact with discussions aggregates data over students and time’ ‘there is no reason to presume that students all interact as the “average” one does.’

‘Case studies are useful in generating understanding of complex phenomena that have not yet been studied extensively (Yin,2003).

The study

Makes use of log file data , unpacks the temporal pattern for each students and links it to the forum content’

‘Whilst the study takes a data driven approach to understand student behaviours , to ground the work conceptually the empirical patterns found are considered in relation to a theoretical taxonomy for discussion participation proposed by Knowlton(2005).’

Taxonomy for participating in online discussions -5 kinds of student participation (Knowlton, 2005)

1. passive
2. developmental – social conversations and locus for community building
3. generative- space to develop one ideas individually and report them to the instructor.
4. Dialogic – forum for interacting with others and their ideas to build and clarify understandings
5. Metacognitive forum for interacting with others and their ideas to build and clarify understandings and an opportunity to reflect on the process of knowledge development. n.b page 4 ‘ the characteristics of metacognitive participation manifest internally; one external indicator might be additional time spent reviewing one’s own and others’ posts.

P3 ( of online version)

RQs

1. What are different patterns of behaviour that individual student exhibit as they participate in an asynchronous online discussion?
2. How do these patterns relate to the theoretical levels of participation in Knowlton’s taxonomy?

Method

Blended, with students required to participate in three asynchronous discussions worth 9% of grade. There was an Introductions week in which students were given a chance to get to know each other and the discussion tool. In each discussion , students were asked to work with their group to collectively solve an organisational behaviour challenge. To support participation students were provided with some seed questions.

Data extraction and processing log of activities – view, post, make post, edit one’s own post with a time date stamp

Based on this data 4 students were selected as representing extremes ( e.g. many frequent visits, few but extended sessions. Etc)

Analysis -Stages of microanalytic case study construction

1. Overview of activity

‘Overall sense of each student’s behaviour by looking at their aggregate behaviour in the Motivation discussion. Pie charts were created for each student (edits, reads, posts, reviews, scans) to examine their relative proportion. In addition, a table was created to outline each student’s activity broken out by session. From this data, an initial portrait was created; this description was treated as a tentative characterisation about the learner’s behaviours, one that would be tested and refined as the data was examined in more depth.’

2. Temporal microanalysis of log-file data

The log file was processed temporally; and thus the combination of this processed log-file data and the dynamic discussion maps supported a meaningful reconstruction of students’ behaviours in the forum. In addition, the contents of the students’ posts were used to help contextualize their actions in the discussion. Their resulting narrative deppened the characterization of each students’ partiaiption

3. Comparison with participation taxonomy

Results & Discussion

P7 ( of online version)

• ‘ The three students ….. exhibit distinct, complex, and seemingly purposeful patterns of behaviour. In particular, the temporal microanalysis provided insight into individual students’ experiences in the discussions, deepening and often dramatically altering the interpretation suggested by the aggregate data’

• The way students interact with the discussion is ‘more varied and nuanced than previously known’ eg selection strategy of which posts to read.

• ‘The students also differed in how they expressed their voice in the discussions. Eg used language that referred to thecontributions of others cf simply acknowledging’.

• ‘The participation patterns ……. Align well with three of the levels of Knowlton’s (2005) taxonomy.

Recommendations

P8 (of the online version)

• ‘instructors should help students to understand the purpose of online discussion’ …
• students do better when given clear guidelines ( Hew, Cheung & Ng, 2008). Reflective journal on whether/how/what they have learned from peers. Dashboard to indicate students own performance against others, class averages ( KRO need to be real others)