Students’ Levels of Knowledge Construction and Cognitive Skills in an Online Forum Learning Environment

Abstract

Online forum is one of the popular activities in a learning management system environment. It allows participants to collaborate and construct knowledge based on the assigned topic. This study attempts to measure the levels of knowledge construction and cognitive skills among postgraduate students participating in an online forum based on the messages they posted. A total of 16 postgraduate students enrolling in a master by coursework program in a public university in Malaysia were involved in this study. One weekly forum was randomly selected from one of the courses offered in this program. Their knowledge construction levels were measured based on the Interaction Analysis Model, while their cognitive skills were measured using the Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. The analysis reveals a total of 101 posts. In terms of levels of knowledge construction, majority of the posts (71.3%) are from the lower levels of knowledge construction, with sharing/comparing of information obtained the highest percentage of messages posted (52.5%). It is followed by discovery and exploration of dissonance or inconsistency among participants (19.8%), and negotiation of meaning or co-construction of knowledge (18.8%). In terms of levels of cognitive skills, majority of the messages are also at the lower level (posts for ‘remember’, ‘understand’ and ‘apply’ contribute to 74.2% of the total posts), with ‘understand’ level involving 37.6%, followed by ‘remember’ (25.7%). However, ‘evaluate’ as one of the higher cognitive levels, recorded 17.8% messages. Although these findings indicate some form of collaboration and construction of knowledge, an important concern arises – the participants’ levels of knowledge construction and cognitive skills are still at the lower levels, therefore, immediate measures have to be taken to alleviate this issue.