Participation In Discussion Forums Research Articles

Is nicotine replacement therapy overvalued in smoking cessation? Analysis of smokers' and quitters' communication in social media.

Internet discussion forums provide new, albeit less used data sources for exploring personal experiences of illness and treatment strategies. To gain an understanding of how discussion forum participants value nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) in smoking cessation (SC). Finnish national Internet-based discussion forum, STUMPPI, supporting SC and consisting of ten free discussion areas, each with a different focus. The analysis was based on STUMPPI forum participants' postings (n = 24 481) in five discussion areas during January 2007-January 2012. Inductive content analysis of the postings concerning NRT use or comparing NRT to other SC methods. Three major themes related to NRT in SC emerged from the discussions. These were as follows: (I) distrust and negative attitude towards NRT; (II) neutral acceptance of NRT as a useful SC method; and (III) trust on the crucial role of NRT and other SC medicines. The negative attitude was related to following perceptions: NRT use maintains tobacco dependence, fear of NRT dependence or experience of not gaining help from NRT use. NRT was perceived to be useful particularly in the initiation of SC attempts and in dealing with physiological dependence. The most highlighted factors of successful quitting were quitters' own psychological empowerment and peer support from the discussion community. The majority of STUMPPI forum participants had low or balanced expectations towards the role of NRT in SC. More research from the smokers' and quitters' perspective is needed to assess the real value of NRT compared to other methods in SC.

Creating a Virtual Learning Community to Engage International Students

In recognition of the continued increase in cultural diversity in graduate tourism and hospitality programs, this study promotes the creation of a virtual learning community to engage international students in the learning process. The study adopted a mixed methods approach to investigate the influence of online discussion forums in the attainment of learning outcomes for international students. Data were collected from commencing international graduate students enrolled in an Australian tourism and hospitality marketing course. The qualitative phase consisted of 99 written student reflections regarding students’ use of an online discussion forum; the reflections were content analyzed, allowing for the identification of relevant themes. The quantitative phase consisted of an online discussion forum participation survey (n = 73). The results of the study suggest that international students, particularly non-native-speaking students, welcome the opportunity to engage in a learning community that reduces cultural and language barriers. Increased exposure to and familiarity with such nontraditional forms of instruction are seen as enablers of positive learning experiences for international students when studying abroad.

Communication patterns in massively open online courses

Despite the hype and speculation about the role massively open online courses (MOOCs) may play in higher education, empirical research that explores the realities of interacting and learning in MOOCs is in its infancy. MOOCs have evolved from previous incarnations of online learning but are distinguished in their global reach and semi-synchronicity. Thus, it is important to understand the ways that learners from around the world interact in these settings. In this paper, we ask three questions: (1) What are the demographic characteristics of students that participate in MOOC discussion forums? (2) What are the discussion patterns that characterize their interactions? And (3) How does participation in discussion forums relate to students' final scores? Analysis of nearly 87,000 individuals from one MOOC reveals three key trends. First, forum participants tend to be young adults from the Western world. Secondly, these participants assemble and disperse as crowds, not communities, of learners. Finally, those that engage explicitly in the discussion forums are often higher-performing than those that do not, although the vast majority of forum participants receive “failing” marks. These findings have implications for the design and implementation of future MOOCs, and how they are conceptualised as part of higher education.

Predictors of Library and Information Science Undergraduates’ Participation in the Online Discussion Forum

The study examined predictors of Library and Information Science undergraduates’ participation in a discussion forum. Through a total enumerative sampling technique, the entire 115 students in (2010/2011) academic session in the Department of Library and Information Science, University of Ilorin, Nigeria were selected to represent the sample for the study. A questionnaire was used to gather data on the study. Three research questions were developed to guide the study. The results demonstrate that computer and Internet search efficacy together with emotional intelligence significantly correlate with and predict users’ participation in an online discussion forum. Similarly, the results suggest that computer and Internet self-efficacy and emotional intelligence constructs are good predictors of participation in the online forum. Based on these findings, the study recommended that LIS students need to be more Internet and computer self-efficacious, as it has been proved that these will promote their participation in the online discussion forum.

‘Anyone Can Be an Illegal’: Color-Blind Ideology and Maintaining Latino/Citizen Borders

Previous research has shown that nativist ideology racializes nonwhite immigrants, but little research has looked at how color-blind racist discourse shapes how people accomplish this while maintaining a race-neutral identity. This study examines how online discussion forum participants of an anti-immigrant organization in the United States use color-blind racist discourse. The qualitative analysis of 200 threads (2,168 posts) shows that forum participants use the color-blind discursive tactic of diminishing the importance of race through rhetoric of legality, cultural racism, and reverse racism. This rhetoric frees forum participants to conflate illegal, criminal, and Hispanic. This neutralizes contradictions in their claims of a race-neutral stance, which is most evident in their discussions of Puerto Rico whereby participants reinforce a dichotomy between citizen and Latino. While color-blind racism has been used to explain race relations between white and nonwhite citizens, this research shows how the ideology extends to include nonwhite immigrants.

Influence of group size on students' participation in online discussion forums

This study attempts to examine how students participate and interact in different discussion modules organized with different group size in an online environment. It adopts a case study methodology where full semester online course with two small-group and three class-wide discussion forums was examined. The researcher counted the number of messages and hits (i.e. the number of students' clicks on other messages) and analyzed that to classify the level of interactivity of every individual message into four categories, i.e. independent, quasi-interactive, interactive (elaborative) and interactive (negotiating). It found that the class guidelines and active encouragement by the instructor had contributed to the high number of total messages and hits representing students' overall participation in all discussion forums. However, large discussion forums in the course had their limitations in promoting higher level of interactivity among the students. On the other hand, two small-group discussion forums had a higher number (by 21%) of enhanced interactivity (elaborating and negotiating mode). The study then concludes that a high quality participation in a large online class could be effected through sub-grouping. It further alludes that other practices should be taken into consideration to promote interactivity in discussion.

Evaluating quality in online asynchronous interactions between students and discussion facilitators

<span>Online discussion forums have become an essential part of university courses, whether the course is conducted online, or face to face, or in mixed or blended mode. Discussion forums are considered to engage students better with the course content and encourage them to share and gain knowledge from each other. However, online engagement does not always happen automatically between students. Hence grading of discussion forum participation has been recommended to ensure quality student participation. Currently, a major focus has been put onto the better use of discussion forums, but the way in which the quality of participation can be evaluated has yet to be adequately investigated. Furthermore, evaluation of the instructor participation in a discussion forum and its impact on students and their contributions is lacking. In this paper, we report on our research into online discussion forum quality through analysis of discussion forum activities, along with student focus group meetings and instructor interviews. We have devised a set of criteria for evaluating discussion forum activities. Our results show that students depend highly on the instructor's feedback and the participation of the students can only be evaluated with reference to the moderation of the instructors.</span>

Requesting and providing information in blogs and internet discussion forums

PurposeThe major aim of this study is to find out whether people articulate their information needs and provide information to others differently in online sites of various types, more specifically, blogs and internet discussion forums.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on the analysis of ten blogs and 40 threads of Suomi24, a Finnish internet discussion forum. The blogs and discussion threads focus on the same topic, that is, coping with depression. For the study, 1,044 blog postings, 1,727 bloggers' and blog readers' comments and 1,236 messages written by the discussion forum participants were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and qualitative content analysis.FindingsThe bloggers, blog readers and discussion group participants mainly articulated needs related to getting an opinion or evaluation of an issue, while needs for factual information and procedural information about possible ways of action were presented less frequently. Information provision drew strongly on the use of personal knowledge. There were no remarkable differences between the types of online sites with regard to the articulation of information needs and using sources for providing information to others.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are based on the analysis of a limited number of Finnish blogs and discussion threads in the field of coping with depression. Thus, the findings cannot be generalized to all online forums of these kinds.Practical implicationsBlogs and internet discussion forums provide useful sites to pose questions for online contributors and to get opinions as well as factual information about the ways to cope with depression.Originality/valueThe study is unique in that it compares information needs and information provision in online sites of various types.

Online Discussion Forums

It has been suggested that interaction in online learning programmes promotes student-centred learning, encourages wider student participation, and produces more in-depth and reasoned discussions than traditional face-to-face programmes (Karayan and Crowe (1997) and Smith and Hardaker (2000) cited in Davies and Graff (2005: 1)). In this article, the participation rates and usage patterns by undergraduate political science students of online discussion forums are examined. The study is guided by a number of questions: (1) Are students willing to participate in online discussion forums? (2) Do students enjoy participating in such forums? (3) What discourages a student from participating in online discussion forums? (4) Is there a link between participation in discussion forums and grade performances in coursework? and (5) Does class size have an impact on forum participation rates? The study focuses on two groups of students studying introductory Irish politics courses in University College Cork, Ireland. The article considers student feedback on the use of online discussion forums, compares the level of participation with course grades, and finally presents an account of the author's reflections on the use of online discussion forums in teaching.

Assessing the effectiveness of a voluntary online discussion forum on improving students’ course performance

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of voluntary discussion forums in a higher education setting. Specifically, we examined intrinsic forum participation and investigated its relation to course performance across two experiments. In Experiment 1 ( N = 1284) an online discussion forum was implemented at the beginning of an undergraduate introductory psychology course, and measures of course performance (i.e., writing assignment grades, exam grades, and extra-credits obtained) were compared with measures of forum participation. In Experiment 2 ( N = 1334) an online discussion forum was implemented halfway through a second undergraduate introductory psychology course, after an initial measure of course performance was obtained, to control for the potential confound of student engagement (e.g., students who perform better in the course use the forum more). Overall, the results showed that students who participated in the forum tended to have better performance in the course, and furthermore that participating in the discussion forum, particularly reading posts on the forum, slightly improved exam performance. This study provides empirical support for the theoretical proposition that there is a facilitation effect of discussion forum participation on course performance. The results also suggest that implementation of an online discussion forum is beneficial even if a teacher only invests minimal time on the forum.

Procrastination, participation, and performance in online learning environments

The present study focuses on a specific learner characteristic in the management of time – procrastination-, and its role in an online learning environment. More specifically, it was expected that procrastination would influence the successfulness of online learning and that this could be explained by the level of participation of learners in discussion forums. A study was conducted to test this hypothesis among a sample of learners taking a 10-week course on environmental and land use issues. As predicted, a negative relationship was found between procrastination and performance, and this relationship was mediated by the level of the learners’ participation in discussion forums. In other words, it appears that if high procrastinators are less successful online learners than low procrastinators, it is partly due to their lack of participation in discussion forums during the learning process. Additionally, some behavioral differences between high and low procrastinators were found in the times they decided to (re)start working at a distance, felt motivated to work on their course, and felt like dropping out of the course. To conclude, some practical implications for tutoring online activities and for stimulating participation in online learning environments have been proposed.

Student perceptions of the impact of online discussion forum participation on learning outcomes

Choosing the “right” type of technology, either synchronous or asynchronous, to facilitate learning outcomes is a new challenge as the pace of emerging technologies increases and diversifies. Teachers are encouraged to design courses that require collaboration in online learning communities to facilitate the development of higher order thinking skills for life long learning. It is therefore important to gather evidence of the kinds of opportunities afforded to students and whether the students themselves endorse collaborative online tools as a legitimate method of assisting in their learning. This paper outlines the way in which one secondary school has used an online discussion forum to support students in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program in enhancing research skills and skills for lifelong learning. The paper considers whether online collaborative tools are perceived by students as a positive way to improve learning outcomes.

Measuring Critical Thinking within Discussion Forums using a Computerised Content Analysis Tool

The use of discussion forums as a means of promoting collaboration and interaction between distance education students is increasing as a result of the growing popularity of online learning. The transcripts of these discussion forums have provided researchers an opportunity to analyse the interactions between participants and investigate evidence of cognitive and metacognitive activity. This paper outlines some of the methodologies adopted by researchers who have attempted to measure evidence of cognitive processes and critical thinking among discussion forum participants. It also investigates the use of computers in the content analysis process and describes the use of automated tools to analyse discussion forum transcripts. The paper then introduces a computerised tool, which has been designed with the aim of allowing different content analysis methodologies to be compared. The paper describes how the tool was used to analyse the discussion forum transcripts from a first year undergraduate degree course and discusses how the results obtained using the tool compared to a manually coded set of results.

Computerised Content Analysis for Measuring Critical Thinking within Discussion Forums

The growing popularity of online education has seen an increasing acceptance of the use of discussion forums as a means of promoting collaboration and interaction among distance education students. The fact that transcripts of these discussion forums can be saved as a permanent digital record has provided researchers an opportunity to analyse the interactions among participants and investigate evidence of cognitive and metacognitive activity. This paper investigates some of the methodologies adopted by researchers who have attempted to analyse discussion forum transcripts, concentrating on methodologies that attempt to measure cognitive processes and critical thinking. It also investigates the use of computers in the content analysis process and describes how a tool using neural network has been successfully used to analyze transcripts. The paper introduces a computerized tool, which aims to allow different content analysis methodologies to be compared. The paper will be of interest to those who use discussion forums in their teaching activities and wish to measure the cognitive processing activities of discussion forum participants.

De clic en clic: Créativité et rationalisation dans les usages des intranets d’entreprise

Many big firms have developed intranets in association with introducing new ways of organizing work and managing know-how. This study of France Telecom’s intranet brings to light two contrasting types of productivity in the social and organizational uses to which this new technology has been put: creativity and rationalization. The links between these two types are analyzed through the publication/consultation of intranet sites and the frequency of participation in discussion forums. Light is shed on the synergy and compromises between these two types and on a series of tensions that mark the uses and rationales whereby persons adopt intranet.

Implantación de semi-presencialidad en una asignatura optativa de la licenciatura en Ciencias y Técnicas Estadísticas

Introducción. Los estudiantes de Aplicaciones de la Estadística en las Ciencias de la Salud llegan con buen nivel en aspectos teóricos, formales e informáticos, y nos proponemos desarrollar sus habilidades de trabajo en equipo y de comunicación oral y escrita, así como sus capacidades cognitivas de análisis, síntesis y evaluación en el área de la Bioestadística. Contenido. Se exponen: (a) la adaptación del programa a un esquema que sustituye las cuatro horas semanales presenciales a un promedio de dos horas quincenales más una serie de actividades complementarias no presenciales; y (b) las dificultades, los resultados, las opiniones emitidas por los estudiantes y las conclusiones de la experiencia.Método. El método docente se ha basado en la realización de las siguientes actividades: 1) tres ejercicios de aprendizaje cooperativo sobre tres guías internacionales de presentación de resultados biomédicos; 2) defensa pública en grupo de un tema; 3) ejercicios numéricos individualizados; 4) prácticas en grupo; 5) tres evaluaciones individuales; y 6) participación en foros de discusión.Conclusiones. La asignatura ha sido seguida con éxito por 21 de los 22 alumnos matriculados, con buena adaptación a la propuesta. Se ha constatado que es posible organizar una asignatura acorde con las especificaciones del espacio europeo de educación superior.