Abstract
The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of scripted roles on students’ level of cognitive presence in asynchronous online threaded discussions. A mixed methods design was used to investigate: (1) what level of cognitive presence is achieved by students’ assigned roles in asynchronous online discussions; (2) differences between students’ cognitive presence when the asynchronous online discussions occur during a 5-week intensive summer courses versus 15-week regular semesters (fall and spring); and (3) the impact of the types of questions on students’ cognitive presence in role-based asynchronous online discussions across three semesters in an online introductory nutrition course. The participants of this study were 129 undergraduate students at a major public University in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The results of this research corresponds to the findings of previous research that scripted roles can be an effective strategy to improve both learning processes and outcomes. In addition, this study didn’t find any differences in students’ level of cognitive presence when they enrolled in 5-week summer courses or 15-week regular semesters in fall and spring. Finally, this study found evidence that the types of questions related to the level of cognitive presence, i.e., higher level questions can lead to higher level of cognitive presence and vice versa.
Highlights
As online courses and programs have increased, the online discussion board has become one of the most important spaces for knowledge construction through communication and social interactions between students and instructors in asynchronous online learning (Xie, Miller, & Allison, 2013; Xie, Yu, & Bradshaw, 2014; Wise & Chiu, 2012)
The authors of this study explored the effects of the role assignments, scripted role assignments, on the levels of students’ cognitive presence in asynchronous online discussions of students in a nutrition science course
Research Question #1 To answer the main research question on what level of cognitive presence was achieved by students’assigned roles in asynchronous online group discussions; the analysis of the percent of posts generated by role assignment during assigned weeks and without role assignment in subsequent weeks was run
Summary
As online courses and programs have increased, the online discussion board has become one of the most important spaces for knowledge construction through communication and social interactions between students and instructors in asynchronous online learning (Xie, Miller, & Allison, 2013; Xie, Yu, & Bradshaw, 2014; Wise & Chiu, 2012). In order to make decisions based on complex knowledge, students in nutritional science courses must achieve a high level of critical thinking to analyze and synthesize information from various sources. The implementation of role-based discussions encourages students to practice critical thinking in a structured, supervised environment, and achieve cognitive presence necessary to construct a meaningful response to complex nutritional questions (Cohen et al, 2011). Assigning roles in asynchronous online discussions does not guarantee that students can reach higher levels of cognitive presence (Garrison et al, 2001)
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