Engagement In Online Discussions Research Articles

Influence of Gamification on Student Engagement in Online Discussions Using Self-Determination Theory

Influence of Gamification on Student Engagement in Online Discussions Using Self-Determination Theory

Evaluating Familiarity Ratings of Domain Concepts with Interpretable Machine Learning: A Comparative Study

Psycholinguistic properties such as concept familiarity and concreteness have been investigated in relation to technological innovations in teaching and learning. Due to ongoing advances in semantic representation and machine learning technologies, the automatic extrapolation of lexical psycholinguistic properties has received increased attention across a number of disciplines in recent years. However, little attention has been paid to the reliable and interpretable assessment of familiarity ratings for domain concepts. To address this gap, we present a regression model grounded in advanced natural language processing and interpretable machine learning techniques that can predict domain concepts’ familiarity ratings based on their lexical features. Each domain concept is represented at both the orthographic–phonological level and semantic level by means of pretrained word embedding models. Then, we compare the performance of six tree-based regression models (adaptive boosting, gradient boosting, extreme gradient boosting, a light gradient boosting machine, categorical boosting, and a random forest) on domain concepts’ familiarity rating prediction. Experimental results show that categorical boosting with the lowest MAPE (0.09) and the highest R2 value (0.02) is best suited to predicting domain concepts’ familiarity. Experimental results also revealed the prospect of integrating tree-based regression models and interpretable machine learning techniques to expand psycholinguistic resources. Specifically, findings showed that the semantic information of raw words and parts of speech in domain concepts are reliable indicators when predicting familiarity ratings. Our study underlines the importance of leveraging domain concepts’ familiarity ratings; future research should aim to improve familiarity extrapolation methods. Scholars should also investigate the correlation between students’ engagement in online discussions and their familiarity with domain concepts.

Five Priorities to Help Learners in the Online Classroom

To maximize online student learning, instructors should prioritize their time towards instructional strategies that students deem most impactful, such as providing individualized, one-to-one feedback; adopting a holistic feedback approach; engaging in asynchronous discussion forums; curating relevant content resources; and presenting instructional content in efficient, versatile formats. As research reveals, learners value instructor feedback and engagement in online discussions above all else, thereby guiding where educators should focus their limited instructional time.

Upgrade Student Engagement in Online Discussion

This case study specifically examines flaws in the design of online conversations created using Salmon's five-stage model, and highlights how easy it is to overlook key aspects when planning an online campaign. In the case study, the topics chosen for discussion failed to resonate with many students on a personal level. This demonstrates the importance of identifying flaws in the design of online conversations created using Salmon's five-stage model and highlights how easily these issues can be overlooked during event planning. It emphasizes the concept that participation is a prerequisite for community development. This article, therefore, explores how skilled community development practitioners can effectively address and overcome barriers to participation by stimulating personal and emotional interest. By understanding the importance of relationships and emotional engagement, educators can create online activities that truly motivate and engage students, resulting in a more vibrant and engaging online learning community.

Understanding student interaction and cognitive engagement in online discussions using social network and discourse analyses

Understanding student interaction and cognitive engagement in online discussions using social network and discourse analyses

The influence of personality traits and basic psychological needs on emotional engagement: An exploration in WeChat discussion

Online discussion is often adopted to facilitate students’ interaction and communication in higher education. Student engagement, which is a prerequisite of the expected outcomes in online discussion, has been conceptualized as a multi-component construct with behavioural, cognitive and emotional aspects. Compared to the first two aspects, emotional engagement has received the least empirical investigation. Nonetheless, previous research has proposed emotional engagement is related to student’s motivation and personality traits. This study adopted an exploratory approach investigating the associations between students’ basic psychological needs (BPNS, i.e., autonomy, competence and relatedness), personality traits (i.e., the Big Five) and emotional engagement during WeChat-based discussions. Participants included 94 Chinese university students who voluntarily completed an anonymous online survey measuring the aforementioned factors. As hypothesized, results indicated extroversion, agreeableness, openness and BPNS were positively related to emotional engagement in online discussion. Further mediation analyses indicated BPNS had mediation effects on the relationship between traits and engagement. This is a sign for researchers and practitioners that BPNS might be more important for improving emotional engagement in online discussion settings. The practical suggestions for teachers, research limitations and future work are also offered.

USING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS IN EDUCATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES: A HASHTAG REVIEW

With the growing interest in online learning, the new understanding of education seeks ways to involve students in asynchronous knowledge content. Building on experiences with using hashtags to connect to social media platforms, the aim of this study is to explore the impact of hashtag use on student engagement in online discussions. In this study, it has been tried to reveal in which context students use hashtags, whether including hashtags in educational processes can contribute to the development of students and whether hashtags can support creating a learning community. For doing this, 36 randomly selected volunteer students studying in the 12th grade were conducted for focus group discussion. Quantitative measures were collected and analyzed to assess student interactions. Observations were made to understand the students' hashtag usage methods and to determine their interactions with each other. The content analysis about the obtained data was examined objectively with a systematic including the information obtained from the qualitative interviews. The hashtags used through the coding scheme were developed using the inductive and deductive approach. Considering the results of the study, it is understood that especially Twitter social platform hashtags give strong motivation to students in terms of educational activities and hashtags contributes to the ability to communicate synchronously and asynchronously with other individuals in the learning community; furthermore it is realised that hashtag is an application that should be supported since it has positive aspects such as creating an environment for students to express their ideas freely.

Incorporating fantasy into gamification promotes student learning and quality of online interaction

We used the design-based research approach to test and refine a theoretically grounded goal-access-feedback-challenge-collaboration gamification model. The testbed was a 10-week, university-level e-learning design course offered in two consecutive semesters. In Study 1, we implemented the initial goal-access-feedback-challenge-collaboration model in semester one of the 2020–2021 academic year (N = 26). The aim was to enhance student behavioral engagement in online discussion forums, affective engagement in the class, and learning performance. The results of Study 1 showed that although most participants were engaged in this gamified learning experience during the first two sessions, they gradually lost interest and their participation in online discussions dropped over the next eight weeks. Thus, we introduced a new element, fantasy, into the original model. In Study 2, we tested the effectiveness of the goal-access-feedback-challenge-collaboration-fantasy model on students’ learning outcomes in semester two of 2020–2021 (N = 23). The results of Study 2 suggested that, compared to the original model, the goal-access-feedback-challenge-collaboration-fantasy model can better promote students’ engagement in online discussion, as measured by increased interaction with peers, learning experience, and learning performance.

Improving learners’ critical thinking and learning engagement through Socratic questioning in Nominal Group Technique

Critical thinking is assumed as one of the essential skills in today’s era. One of the ways to foster students’ critical thinking is through discussion that provokes their curiosity. Unfortunately, in the online setting, some studies reported that students face challenges in online discussion. Therefore, teachers should find a way to optimize students’ engagement in online discussions. The Nominal Group Technique (NGT), which this paper argues for proposing a potential way in improving students’ participation and their critical thinking in an online discussion, is less used as a teaching strategy in educational practices. With the integration of Socratic Questioning, this research implemented a pre-experimental method with a one-shot design aimed at investigating the effectiveness of the NGT implementation in Critical Reading Classes conducted online combining both synchronous and asynchronous settings. Pre- and post-tests were implemented in two classes involving 52 students in six meetings. The descriptive statistics and t-test analysis had been implemented to find out the differences in students’ critical thinking skills before and after the NGT implementation. The result showed that there was a significant improvement in students’ critical thinking skills at p0.001, which confirmed that NGT with the integration of Socratic Questioning had a significant effect on the improvement of students’ critical thinking skills in an online context.

The Three-Iterative Design and Implementation of a Student-Facing Social Learning Analytics Tool

The design of social learning analytics (SLA) tools has become a practical means to make available learning information with a goal to improve students' regulation, reflection, and engagement in online learning. This design-based research uses the multi-method analytics to iteratively design, implement, and modify the SLA tool that makes available social, topic, and cognitive information to students in online discussions. This tool demonstrates students' online discussions from social, sematic, and cognitive aspects. This research further uses online questionnaire and interview methods to investigate students' perceptions about the tool's usefulness and usability. After experiencing this tool, students proposed critical feedback for tool improvement from the network visualization, peer reference, and explanation support perspectives. Overall, the SLA tool is a beneficial tool to foster students' awareness of their own learning and peer learning process to improve students' regulation and reflection of learning and eventually improve student engagement in online discussions.

Facilitating student engagement in online discussions through self-organisation

Facilitating student engagement in online discussions through self-organisation

Effect of three network visualizations on students' social‐cognitive engagement in online discussions

AbstractSocial learning analytics (SLA) tools are designed to visually demonstrate online discussions with a goal to foster student engagement. However, empirical studies indicate controversial results of the effect of SLA tools on student engagement. This design‐based research designs a student‐facing SLA tool to demonstrate discussions from three perspectives and further uses mixed methods to investigate the effects of the tool. Results indicate the tools have positive influences on increasing student social‐cognitive engagement. The social network visualization has positive influences on both socially active and inactive students; it particularly increases peripheral students' social engagement. The topic network visualization improves all students' perspective expressions, indicating that demonstrating students' interested topics may increase cognitive engagement. The cognitive network visualization triggers students' information sharing, which is considered as the beginning of online engagement development. Based on the results, this research proposes integrated implications by considering learning theory, pedagogical supports and tool development. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic SLA tools are designed to turn learning data into actionable insights of student engagement. Network‐oriented, content‐oriented and process‐oriented analytics are three major approaches. Extant empirical studies indicate controversial results of the effect of SLA tools on student engagement. What this paper adds This research designs a SLA tool to demonstrate student engagement via three network visualizations. This research uses mixed methods to examine students' social‐cognitive engagement. Results show that the designed SLA tools have positive influences on increasing students' engagement. Implications for practice and/or policy Design of SLA tools needs to consider learner agency, disposition and characteristic in the local context. Instructors should deliberately guide students reflect on the information demonstrated in the SLA tool. Future SLA design should make integrate multiple analytic results to reflect engagement in varied ways.

Developing Online Discussion Boards to Increase Student Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the current pandemic, colleges are at the fork to either open the campus and curb the spread of COVID-19 or go virtual and risk their efficiency and finally give into financial ruin. This study explores learners’ perceptions of engagement in an online environment to curtail online courses. How educators and students socially interact in cyberspace is a long-standing research topic. Several researchers explored online engagement in higher education in multiple studies (e.g., Kahu, 2011; Ross, 2010). However, there is a lack of research that explores preservice teachers’ engagement in English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) courses. We focused on preservice ESOL teachers’ perceptions of engagement in online discussions to uncover factors that could contribute to increasing their engagement. We collected the data through an online survey, student interviews, and recording online asynchronous discussion transcripts. Constant comparative analysis of data indicated a safe, non-threatening atmosphere as well as a sense of confirmation, and exploring new aspects of the topic; factors that reassured the engagement of the participants.

The Influence of Group Big-Five Personality Composition on Student Engagement in Online Discussion

To explore the influence of the group personality composition on students' engagement in the online discussion, correlation analysis was conducted among the Big-5 personality of group members and student engagement in the group. This study comprehensively used four measurement indicators of the Big-Five personality of group members as group composition: average, variance, maximum, and minimum. In this study, student engagement was divided into behavioral engagement, affective engagement, and cognitive engagement. The study found that the combination of the Big-Five personalities in the group could have an impact on student engagement, especially affective engagement. When organizing students' online discussion, the instructors need to consider the personality characteristics of the group members carefully.

Applying gamifications to asynchronous online discussions: A mixed methods study

Engaging students in online discussions is challenging. This paper presents a mixed methods study using a gamification approach to promote student engagement in online discussions. A total of 70 students were enrolled in this study from an asynchronous online undergraduate level political science course. The study findings suggested that the gamification approach only had positive effects on the students' number of comments and performance in online discussions who were more aware of the gamification approach. However, it appears that the gamification approach failed in promoting students' sense of community. Additionally, students' responses to the interviews and open-ended questions revealed similar results, although more students in the gamified group indicated that the online discussions forced them to think hard. The limited influence of the gamification approach in the current study may be attributed to several factors that related to the facilitation of the gamification approach, the types of badges, and technical issues. Implications and suggestions for future research have been discussed.

Effects of graphic organizers in online discussions: comparison between instructor-provided and student-generated

The current experimental study examined the effects of graphic organizers in a collaborative learning context where students constructed knowledge during online discussions. As the results could vary depending on how students interacted with the graphic organizers, this study compared two different approaches: instructor-provided versus student-generated graphic organizers. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of receiving or generating graphic organizers on students’ engagement in online discussions. Thirty-six graduate students enrolled in an online graduate course participated in the study. While analyzing an instructional design case, students were asked to discuss design issues in a randomly assigned group. There were three conditions: control condition without graphic organizers, instructor-provided, and student-generated graphic organizers. Major findings revealed that both generating and receiving graphic organizers facilitated students’ higher levels of cognitive engagement, and encouraged students to consider alternative views during the discussions. Without the graphic organizer, students tended to simply summarize previous messages or raise new issues rather than elaborating on previous topics. There was a significant finding regarding the ways of interacting graphic organizers. Students discussed more topics when they were given instructor’s graphic organizers rather than when they were asked to generate them.

Using the Photovoice Method to Elicit Authentic Learning in Online Discussions

While online discussions remain popular in college classrooms, mixed results persist about their effectiveness in eliciting authentic learning. This case study explores how students perceive the influence of the Photovoice method on their authentic learning, critical thinking, engagement, and peer interaction in an asynchronous online discussion. Photovoice is a research method combining photography with social action, in which people express their points of view by photographing scenes that highlight certain themes. Students in an online undergraduate course engaged in an online discussion which asked them to connect personal images to the course content. Students reported that this strategy supported authentic learning, critical thinking, engagement, and interaction; in addition, a correlational analysis found that these factors are highly interrelated. This case study proposes recommendations for practitioners interested in using a similar approach.

Using the Photovoice Method to Elicit Authentic Learning in Online Discussions

While online discussions remain popular in college classrooms, mixed results persist about their effectiveness in eliciting authentic learning. This case study explores how students perceive the influence of the Photovoice method on their authentic learning, critical thinking, engagement, and peer interaction in an asynchronous online discussion. Photovoice is a research method combining photography with social action, in which people express their points of view by photographing scenes that highlight certain themes. Students in an online undergraduate course engaged in an online discussion which asked them to connect personal images to the course content. Students reported that this strategy supported authentic learning, critical thinking, engagement, and interaction; in addition, a correlational analysis found that these factors are highly interrelated. This case study proposes recommendations for practitioners interested in using a similar approach.

Scaffolding Argumentation in Asynchronous Online Discussion

Despite its wide usage and pedagogical benefits, asynchronous online discussion in higher education courses does not necessarily lead to students' knowledge-constructing discourse and reflective learning. Integrating argumentation into online discussion can facilitate meaningful learning. In this article, the authors present a framework of Scaffolded Online Dialogic Argumentation (SODA) that they created for designing an asynchronous online discussion. Based on the design framework, the authors developed and implemented an argumentation activity in a graduate-level online course. They then examined participants' perceptions of the pedagogical components of SODA using a qualitative inquiry approach. Findings indicate that students perceive a positive influence of the scaffolded argumentation activity on their learning engagement in online discussion. Implications include suggestions for researchers and practitioners in refining and using SODA for future research and discussion activity design.

An exploratory study of student engagement in gamified online discussions

This is an exploratory study that examines the influence of the gamification approach on student engagement in online discussions. A gamified online discussion tool, gEchoLu, was implemented in an undergraduate level online course, which held 22 online discussions. The data was collected through gEchoLu database, survey, and individual interviews with 12 students and the teaching assistant. The triangulated results revealed that the gamification approach positively affected student engagement. Factors such as technical issues, classmates' behaviors that either promoted or impeded students from engaging in the gamified online discussions were identified. The interview with the teaching assistant (TA) further revealed the influence of the gamification approach on student engagement from an educator's perspective, and the obstacles that the TA encountered in the gamified online discussions. Lessons learned are also shared in detail.