Socially-Motivated Discussion Forum Models for Learning Management Systems

Abstract

This paper seeks to contribute to the field of learning management system (LMS) development in tertiary education institutions, in particular, to advance the adoption of LMSes by exploring the incorporation of appropriate socially-motivated discussion forums. This study uses a Web-based application, which implements four different discussion forum models for learning management systems (LMSes), in order to test usability and student preferences. Two non-social discussion forums and two social discussion forums were compared, to determine their appropriateness in terms of attributes or features and general functionality for LMSes. The design processes led to the creation of a Web-based application called 4DFs that includes implementations of all discussion forum models. Two of these models are non-social discussion forums: the chat room unstructured model and the traditional general threaded discussion. The other two types are social discussion forums, where users can choose who they converse with: the Twitter-style short comment feed and the Facebook-style hybrid post and reply. A controlled experiment was conducted with 31 students from the institution. The study found that students preferred that the learning forum includes certain characteristics - they prioritised ease of use, low complexity, less interaction and a user-friendly interface over their familiarity with the forum. For learning, there is a need to use the features for a specific purpose so users do not necessarily want non-essential features like emojis; instead they want systems that help them to learn efficiently.