Social Presence, Lecturer Presence and Participation in Asynchronous Online Discussion Forums

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Social Presence, Lecturer Presence and
Participation in Asynchronous Online Discussion
Forums

• Ainslie Ellis
• Ben Llewellyn
• Faculty of Information Technology
• Monash University

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The students online learning environment
Online Place
Group Processes
F2f Place
Resources
Learner ? teacher
Social Presence
Place
Community
Learning
Self
Activity
Tasks
Personality
Learning Styles
Culture
Extension of Goodyears (2000) schema for the
educational design problem space
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The Subject

• Third year elective Issues for Human
  Communication Across the Internet
  undergraduate computing degree
• Building a collaborative learning environment
  through
• the students finding information themselves
• evaluation and critical analysis of information
• discussion with peers to build structured
  arguments and draw conclusions about the various
  topics under discussion
• a constructivist approach
• The lecturers role was that of facilitator.

The Philosophy of the Subject
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Face-to-face Classes

• July 2000 one two-hour session once per week
• March 2002 two two-hour sessions in weeks
  1,2,9-13
• Seeding information provided by lecturer (video
  tapes, audio tapes, content from books, articles
  and the Web)
• Activities introduced to reinforce and elicit
  information and promote discussion
• Discussion - class group and small student groups
• Investigation of Web sites provided by students

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Structure of the Online Forum

• Purpose - to provide subject information,
  reference material and to discuss issues.
• Issues seeded through readings provided by the
  lecturer, questions about the issue under
  discussion, current cases and activities.
• Students contributed through discussion and
  information on topics.
• July 2000 4 discussion topics individual
  participation
• Intellectual property, ethics and censorship,
  equity and access, online identity
• March 2002 3 discussion topics
• Intellectual property individual participation
  2 separate forums (one for Australian group,
  one for Swedish group)
• Equity and access 2 separate forums (small
  groups for Australian group, individual
  participation for Swedish group)
• Online identity one forum individual
  participation

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Analysis of the Discussion Forums

• Data was collected through
• Reflective reports written by students
• In-depth interviews with some students
• Observations made in class
• July 2000 - Video-taping face-to-face discussion
• March 2002 Observer attending class
• Observations made by the lecturer
• Texts of on-line discussions
• Logs of use of the on-line forum

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Social and Physical Presence Four Questions

• Do introductory activities online impact on
  subsequent online forum participation?
• Does group size impact on online forum
  participation?
• Does the lecturers physical presence impact on
  online forum participation?
• Does the physical presence and face-to-face peer
  interaction (in classes) impact on online forum
  participation?

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Impact of introductory activities online

• Social connection with others through
  introductory online activities had
• little effect on the amount of passive
  participation
• some effect on active participation through
  number of posted messages
• Students comments on value of introductory
  session as a getting to know you activity

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Impact of group size

• Small group size and engendering a team
  environment impacts significantly on online
  participation (small group (4 or 5 students)
  forums had nearly double the participation of the
  whole class forums.
• Student comments indicated
• a marked preference for the small group work
• the development of a sense of a team
• a sense of obligation to participate in the small
  group for the sake of the group.

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Impact of lecturers physical presence impact

• Lecturers physical impact impacted on passive
  participation only
• A period of absence also has an impact on passive
  participation.

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Impact of physical presence and classroom
face-to-face peer interaction

• No significant impact on passive or active
  participation

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Implications of Findings

• Small sample limited generalisations
• Introductory activities online can help in
  generating a sense of connectivity between
  students and thus help increase participation in
  the online environment
• Work in groups of four or five may be far more
  effective than tutorial sized groups online
• The lecturers presence may be more important
  than peer presence. For mixed mode courses, the
  lecturer may need to provide active motivation
  online, not just in face-to-face classes
• Staged face-to-face opportunities in online
  courses could help maintain participation

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Questions?
ainslie.ellis_at_infotech.monash.edu.au