Running Head: DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

Discussion Forum Participation: Literature Review Jennifer A. Stieda University of British Columbia

DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

Discussion Forum Participation: Literature Review Introduction Online learning has become increasingly popular along with an interest in designing constructivist-inspired learning environments. These two ideas are being linked in an effort to provide convenient access to meaningful learning opportunities. Social constructivists often look to discussion forums to fulfill the social mandate of their learning pedagogy in online learning environments (Chapman, Ramondt & Smiley, 2005; Lapadat, 2002; McMahon & Thakore, 2008). Therefore, it is critical that this educational tool be utilized to its full potential for the construction of deep and meaningful learning. As a teacher and aspiring instructional designer, I am interested in how the advantages of online discussion forums can be used to scaffold high school learners. For the purposes of this study, an online discussion forum is defined as an online venue where students can post messages to exchange ideas, ask questions, offer answers, or generally communicate in writing with each other and a tutor. Replies are associated with original messages to create threads of discussion. Literature Review The following review of the literature pertaining to discussion forum participation and grades informs the proposed research questions and methodology. The review revolves around two topics of interest: (1) the nature and quality of discussions in online environments and (2) how participation in online discussions is related to student success or grades. Most research in these areas is conducted at the university level with much less literature available concerning secondary education. It is difficult to generalize what we learn in the university setting to the

DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

secondary setting. This challenge must be taken into consideration when reviewing the literature in these two areas. The Nature and Quality of Discussions in Online Environments Various studies analyze discussion forum interactions (Pena-Shaff & Nicholls, 2004; Moore & Marra, 2005; Chen & Wang, 209; Lipponen, 2003; Lapadat, 2007). Depending on the focus of interest, different coding strategies or protocols have been developed and used. Several of the coding strategies are similar enough to enable some comparison of results. Two studies reviewed here specifically suggest that social interaction plays an important role in the learning process. Lapadat (2007) was interested in how online discussion forums assisted the establishment of community, increased coherence in discussion and how students negotiate agreement. In a study involving six graduate education students over a 16 week course delivered entirely online, Lapadat discerned 13 separate discussion devices that promoted community building including the use of greetings, self-disclosure and use of humour. The success of these discussions seemed to stem from the safe social environment developed during the course. Unfortunately, there were very few of subjects, with the majority being female. Perhaps these factors influenced the kind of interaction seen in the discussion forum. However, Lapadats study highlights the importance of community building and social interaction in successful discussions. Chen & Wang (2009) reported that social talk, although often considered off-task or unrelated to academic content, was surprisingly beneficial to learning. In their study of a sixweek virtual science summer camp involving 487 secondary students, Chen & Wang analyzed 1055 postings. They found that social (off-task) talk was interwoven with domain (on-task) talk in order to create a more comfortable environment for meaningful discussion and

DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

collaboration on projects, thus supporting Lapadats (2007) findings. They refuted the common assertion that off-task talk is separate from and less desirable than on-task talk. Limitations to this study, include the fact that students were able to mark messages as important and that this was a science camp in Taiwan. It may be difficult to generalize the results to different conditions. Pena-Shaff & Nicholls (2004) published a study in which they analyzed student interactions and meaning construction in an online discussion forum. The sample included 35 university students of which 63% were under 24 years of age. The researchers were interested in whether or not students engaged in a dialogical process of knowledge construction. They found that students constructed knowledge in a social way by building on their peers ideas; however, the process was not dialogic. Of the 594 sentences posted, 44% were coded as elaboration or clarification. This included explaining, identifying and linking ideas, presenting similarities and differences, and using examples and personal experiences. In contrast to Lapadats 2007 study, very little discussion took place around conflicting views. It was noted, however, that discussions took on a more conversational, social quality near the end of the term, perhaps reflecting a stronger feeling of community. The researchers based their coding categories on past research practices from several sources. They also included new categories as themes emerged from the data. The main limitations of this study are the small sample size, the fact that the discussion forum was part of a course which included face to face interaction, and that the subjects were not secondary students. Like Pena-Shaff & Nicolls (2004), Lipponen, Rahikainen, Lallimo & Hakkarainen (2003), found little negotiation of meaning or strong disagreement in their analysis of an online discussion forum in a grade 5, suburban school in Helsinki. This four-week study involving 23

DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

students in one classroom analyzed the patterns of participation and discourse in computer supported collaborative learning. The coding system analyzed the quality of posts by looking at their focus (on or off task), nature (positive, negative, or neutral feedback), function (providing information, asking for clarification) and type (note which starts a discussion, note to which there is no reply). As in the study by Pena-Shaff & Nicholls (2004), a high proportion of the postings related to providing information and seeking clarification. Using social network analysis, the researchers examined the density of interactions (who was talking to whom) and centrality of interactions (if any participants were focal points of interaction). The researchers found that increased interaction did not necessarily stem from the quality of the posts. They concluded that social interactions might help stimulate participation and build community, but they down played their importance for learning academic content. This exemplifies the lack of value given to social talk that Chen & Wang (2009) referred to. Limitations to this study include that the participants were chosen by convenience (all from one classroom), rather than randomly and the discussion forum was part of a blended learning environment. The latter issue making it difficult to generalize the results to an entirely virtual setting. In 2005, a study by Moore & Marra found that how students were asked to participate in online discussion forums significantly changed the level and nature of participation. Their study took place over four weeks and compared 252 postings from two sections of the same course. The sample included 37 university students. An acknowledged limitation of the study was that one section (21) was larger than the other (16). The researchers coded their data using the Interaction Analysis Model originally developed by Gunawardena, Lowe, & Anderson in 1997. The five phases of the model are intended to measure evidence of knowledge construction. It is

DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

postulated that knowledge construction occurs at phase III and above.

The researchers found

that most postings fell into phases I and II. Other researchers have reported similar results (Hendriks & Maor, 2004). The section instructed to use an argumentative approach to postings had fewer postings at phase III (21%) than the section using a less restrictive approach (35%). Participation in Online Discussions and Student Success An interesting and often cited study by Beaudoin (2002) examined in part, the relationship between the level of participation in an online discussion forum and final course grades. The researchers administered a 23-item questionnaire to 24 graduate students who failed to participate actively in a one week online conference featuring guest speakers. Notably, the subjects did not display this behaviour throughout the course which means these results may not apply to those who do. They found that highly visible students received better grades than students who did not participate in the discussion forum at all and that low visibility students fared better than average visibility students. A high level of participation did not guarantee a higher grade, while at the same time nominal participation did not necessarily negatively affect grades. From the results of the questionnaire, the researchers reported that students were engaged in the course content during the week in other ways (e.g. reading). The researchers observed that students want to get it right before they commit themselves to online dialogue because the written format seems so public. This underscores the importance of a safe, social background to a discussion forum to facilitate and encourage participation. Beaudoin failed to include data tables in this study and did not mention whether participation was voluntary or not, both of which would have strengthened the published study. Nagel, Blignaut and Cronjs (2009) study sought to relate online participation to learning and successful course completion while also considering how participation influenced the

DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

learning community. The study followed 22 graduate students aged 30-50 over an 8-week online course. They collected quantitative data from the Web Course Tool used for the discussion forum as well as data from a post-course feedback form. Each student was assessed a collaboration score based on a rubric developed by the students during the course. Unfortunately, neither the feedback questions nor the rubric were included in the published study. Participation was measured using the number of posts and the number times a student accessed the discussion forum. Using both of these measures, higher grades were correlated with increased participation. However, posting frequently did not always result in higher achievement since several average achievers posted a lot of messages and two high achievers posted only a few messages. Nagel et al. (2009) calculated a reply ratio by dividing the number of replies by the number of original messages. This was intended to reflect the level of interaction for a given student. Using this measure, higher levels of interaction were related to higher grades. The researchers cautioned against Beaudoins (2002) tolerance for lurkers or read-only participants. They advocated for the importance of building trust among students through the quality of messages rather than quantity. Davies and Graff (2005) explored whether or not the level of interaction in an online course was related to grades. Their sample included 122 students (70 male and 52 female) who participated in a 12-month, 6-module, online business degree course. Like Nagel et al. (2009), they used the number of times the discussion board was accessed to measure participation. This poses a limitation to the study since merely accessing a discussion forum does not ensure participation. The researchers used the final year end grade over all six modules as the measure of success. Their results showed that while failing students had lower participation rates than

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successful students, there was no significant difference between average and high achieving students participation rates. Like Nagel et al. (2009), higher participation did not necessarily relate to higher grades. Synthesis and Conclusion Several of the studies reviewed noted the importance of the social atmosphere created in the discussion forum (Chen & Wang, 2009; Lapadat, 2007; Lipponen et al., 2003; Pena-Shaff & Nicholls, 2004). Whether or not social interaction is related to achievement is a topic for further research. Pena-Shaff & Nicholls (2004), Lipponen et al. (2003), and Moore & Marra (2005) found students engaged most often in information sharing and clarification rather than negotiation of meaning and knowledge co-construction. This suggests to me that discussion forums are not being used to their full potential for constructing knowledge or that students are not articulating their knowledge construction in this setting. Student success appears to be related to participation in discussion forums with some caveats (Beaudoin, 2002; Davies & Graff, 2005; Nagel et al., 2009). For example, high participation rates do not guarantee high grades. I am curious whether the results reported at the university level are comparable to the secondary setting. All of the studies reviewed here point to multiple factors involved in successful knowledge construction through online discussion forums. Some of these factors include voluntary vs. involuntary participation, open vs. structured participation, blended versus exclusively online course structure, offline activity and the nature or quality of messages.

DISCUSSION FORUM PARTICIPATION: LITERATURE REVIEW

References Beaudoin, M. F. (2002). Learning or lurking? Tracking the "invisible" online student. Internet and Higher Education, 5, 147155. Chapman, C., Ramondt, L., & Smiley, G. (2005). Strong community, deep learning: Exploring the link. Innovations in Education and Teaching International 42, 217-230. Chen, F. C., & Wang, T. C. (2009). Social conversation and effective discussion in online group learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 57, 587-612. Davies, J., and Graff, M. (2005). Performance in e-learning: online participation and student grades. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36, 657-663. doi: 10.1111/j.14678535.2005.00542.x Gunawardena, C. N., Lowe, C. A., & Anderson, T. (1997). Analysis of global online debate and the development of an interaction analysis model for examining social construction of knowledge in computer conferencing. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 17(4), 397-431. Hendriks, V., & Maor, D. (2004). Quality of students' communicative strategies delivered through computer-mediated communications. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 15, 5-32. Lapadat, J. C. (2002). Written interaction: A key component in online learning. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7(4), 0. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2002.tb00158.x Lapadat, J. C. (2007). Discourse devices used to establish community, increase coherence, and negotiate agreement in an online university course. Journal of Distance Education, 21(3), 59-92.

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Lipponen, L., Rahikainen, M., Lallimo, J., & Hakkarainen, K. (2003). Patterns of participation and discourse in elementary students' computer supported collaborative learning. Learning and Instruction, 13, 487-509. McMahon, T., & Thakore, H. (2008). Teaching online: A research-based guide for academics. Quality of Higher Education, 5, 54-73. Moore, J. L., & Marra, R. M. (2005). A comparative analysis of online discussion participation protocols. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 38, 191-212. Nagel, L., Blignaut, A. S., & Cronj, J. C. (2009). Read-only participants: a case for student communication in online classes. Interactive Learning Environments, 17, 37-51. Pena-Shaff, J. B., & Nicholls, C. (2004). Analyzing student interactions and meaning construction in computer bulletin board discussions. Computers & Education, 42, 243265.