Non-Comparative Evaluation Study

Title:

Comparing the Impact of Two Different Designs for Online Discussion

Author:

Yuankun Yao

The purpose:

This study compared two ways of designing the discussion forums in an online class for teacher candidates. The purpose was to find out if requiring students to respond to one another with little intervention from the instructor would lead to increased student participation and more significant student learning, as compared to a design that required students to directly respond to the original discussion topic followed by an instructor response.

The audience:

Students of University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg located 35 miles from suburban Kansas City in USA.

The technology used:

Online Discussion

Instrument:

Observation

This major:

1) The number of times the students and the instructor visited each discussion forum

2) The number of times posted a message in a discussion forum

3) The number of words for each posted message.

Conclusion:

This study examined the impact of two different designs of online discussion on student participation in the discussions and the type of learning that was generated.

The results showed that when students were given an opportunity to respond to each other with the instructor mostly absent in the discussion process until the end of the discussions, they would visit the discussion forums more frequently. They were also more likely to pose follow-up questions for their classmates and engage in meaningful inquires. On the other hand, when the instructor posted frequently in the discussion forums, students would respond to him instead of their peers, and the discussions were seldom carried forth in much depth.

Reference:

Yao, Yuankun.Comparing the Impact of Two Different Designs for Online Discussion.