Thesis Proposal

InnovatIons In EducatIon and tEachIng IntErnatIonal, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2016.1143858

Student perceptions of effective discussion in online forums: a case study of pre-service teachers

Alice Ebrahimia, Esmail Faghihb and Mohammad Dabir-Moghaddamc

aEnglish department, alzahra university, tehran, Iran; bEnglish department, Islamic azad university, tehran, Iran; clinguistics department, allameh tabatabai university, tehran, Iran

Introduction

Asynchronous discussion forums offer potential for creating social relationships among the participants in virtual learning environments. Such interactions are assumed, based on sociocognitive and con- structivist theories of learning (Vygotsky, 1978), to facilitate learners’ construction of knowledge. The benefits of these interactions have been highlighted in teacher education programmes as well. A large body of research exists on the impacts of online discussions on promoting reflection and collaboration among student teachers (STs) (Farr & Riordan, 2015; Riordan, 2013); enhancing critical and higher order thinking skills (McLoughlin & Mynard, 2009; Szabo & Schwartz, 2011); creating a sense of community among the participants and building supportive affective environments (Parks, 2010).

Contrary to these studies, however, some researchers have questioned the value of online discus- sions. For example, Reisetter and Boris (2004) found that the graduate students emphasised the impor- tance of student–instructor interaction and devalued peer interaction. Battalio (2007) also reported that two-thirds of the students in his study preferred working on their own, rather than interacting with others; the interactions appeared to have no significant role in student perceptions of the success of the course. Dixon and Dixon (2008) also found that in a context of adult learners, the need for inter- action with peers declines as the participants ‘trust their own skills and knowledge-building capacity

ABSTRACT This study reports on a mixed methods study which explored 32 Iranian pre- service teachers’ perceptions of attending online asynchronous discussion forums during two seven-week online introductory courses in corpus linguistics. Data were collected through a questionnaire, discussion forum entries and online text-based semi-structured interviews. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of data revealed that the participants took part in the discussions mainly to express their attitudes, beliefs and evaluations; yet they were hesitant to express their emotions, answer their peers’ questions, critique others’ views, express acknowledgements and make references to other sources. The participants felt that online discussions should bring about meaningful, relevant and useful learning outcomes and help them understand the course topics rather than develop social relationships. The findings can help online instructors in postgrad education to manage effective online communication practices.

KEYWORDS online interaction; pre- service teachers; online discussion forums; social gains; cognitive gains

© 2016 taylor & Francis

CONTACT alice Ebrahimi [email protected]

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and became far more independent’ (p. 222). Therefore, the researchers suggested that more emphasis should be placed on high-quality material design rather than student–student interaction.

To further examine the claims made for and against online interaction, the present study aimed at exploring 32 student teachers’ (STs) engagement in online discussion forums to examine their per- ceptions of the efficacy of such interactions on their cognitive and academic growth. The following research question guided the study: What types of interactions do the STs engage in and how do they value such interactions?

Method

Participants

The participants (N = 32) were two groups of Iranian pre-service teachers of English as a foreign lan- guage at the master of arts level from three universities who were enrolled in two fully online courses in corpus linguistics (CL). The first group comprised 20 students (15 females and 5 males) in the age range of 21–51. The second group consisted of 12 students (8 females and 4 males) in the age range of 21–40. Although most STs were competent in working with computers, very few had the experience of taking online courses, because teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) programmes are rarely offered virtually in Iran.

The online course

Drawing upon a social constructivist perspective and following the ‘three C’ model of course design (Bird, 2007), two online introductory courses in CL were designed. The model incorporates three major concepts: (1) content or declarative knowledge; (2) construction, i.e. the social construction of knowl- edge; and (3) consolidation which encompasses reflection. Following this model, the instructions were centred on establishing a vibrant learning community through dialogue, discussion and reflection.

The courses were delivered via Nicenet (available at: www.nicenet.org) which offered facilities for private messaging and threaded discussions. As part of the course requirement (30% of the course final grade), STs were required to discuss the course readings and assignments with their classmates in online discussion forums. Prior to the courses, the instructor (the first author of the study) gave the STs clear directions regarding writing and posting messages in the forums. The instructor acted as a facilitator and guide. Normally, she would start the discussions by posting 2–3 prompts after each lesson, although, the STs could initiate new topics as well. The instructor’s intervention was kept to a minimum to encourage more student involvement.

Data collection and analysis

It is worth mentioning that this study was part of a larger research project which examined the STs’ evaluations of two fully online courses in CL; yet, in this paper, only data reflecting the STs’ participations in, and perceptions of, attending online discussions are discussed. The present paper draws on data from three sources: (1) a post-course online survey questionnaire; (2) discussion forum transcripts; and (3) online text-based semi-structured interviews conducted via emails with 26 STs.

The questionnaire was adapted, with minor modifications, from the questionnaire designed by Parks (2010). It consisted of 16 Likert-type items intended to gauge the usefulness of online discussions in terms of their cognitive and social aspects. The reliability of the questionnaire was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha. Cronbach’s alpha for the full scale was .89, and, for the subscales ‘cognitive’, ‘affec- tive’ and ‘community’ were .91, 087 and .85, respectively. The content validity of the questionnaire was checked with three colleagues.

To analyse the discussion forum entries, directed content analysis approach was used to find evidence of STs’ social and cognitive engagement (Zhang & Wildemuth, 2009).The coding was done employing the

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idea suggested in the theory of community of inquiry (CoI) proposed by garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000). CoI assumes that effective online learning is a function of the interaction of social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence. During the analysis, however, the researchers checked the data to find new categories. The interview data were coded inductively following the three Cs approach proposed by Lichtman (2006). The three Cs stand for codes, categories and concepts. Codes similar in nature are grouped together to define categories and related concepts.

To establish dependability of the study, the inter-coder reliability was calculated which was .85 for interview data and .87 for discussion data. To ensure consistency of analysis, a code–recode approach was employed. having performed the initial coding, the same researcher recoded the same data after an interval of three months which yielded 90% consistency between the first and second content anal- yses for interview data, and 85% for discussion entries. To ensure trustworthiness, all counter-examples were considered. In reporting the results, to observe ethics of qualitative research, the participants were given numbers, i.e. STs in the first group were given the numbers from 1 to 20 and STs in the second group, from 21 to 32.

Results

In all, over 7  weeks, the 21 participants in group one (20 STs  +  instructor) posted 134 messages in 19 threads which constituted a corpus of 12,840 words. In the second group, 13 participants (12 STs + instructor) took part in 14 discussion threads and produced 81 messages with 5167 words. The following sections present the results of the analyses of the survey, interviews and discussion entries.

Social aspects

The social aspects of the discussion forum activity embraced two aspects: affective and community (or sense of community) aspects.

Affective aspects

Survey results Table 1 displays the results for affective aspects. As reflected in Table 1, 90% enjoyed participating in the discussions; however, about half of the participants were undecided whether they would partici- pate in such a discussion forum again. Interestingly, 70% felt that compared to classroom discussions, online discussions had provided a more relaxed environment. Yet, 80% were unable to decide if their classmates were interested in reading their posts and only 30% were interested in reading others’ posts. Also, 75% preferred a course with discussion forums.

Interview results In accord with the results of the survey, nearly all STs (90%) confirmed that the interactions helped them feel relaxed, confident and less anxious to express their views. The affective gains mentioned could be summarised as follow, with the numbers in parentheses indicating the number of times each was mentioned:

• Feeling less anxiety and stress (8). • Feeling safe, comfortable and relaxed to voice opinions (6). • Feeling calm by receiving help from others (4). • Developing a sense of confidence and worth (3). • Feeling the course as fun and amusing (3).

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Community aspects (sense of community)

Survey results As shown in Table 2, 60% agreed they had experienced a sense of community, while 40% were indif- ferent. No one had felt that a community had not been formed. Concerning providing help to others, 45% felt that they had been able to be of help to others, while 45% were undecided. With respect to STs’ views on the level of instructor’s participation in the discussions, 65% would like to see more instructor involvement. Interestingly, 75% confirmed that they had received help with their problems via the discussion forums.

Interview results The community gains could be summarised as follows:

• Establishing close relationships with others (8). • gaining help from others (6). • Feeling at ease to ask questions (5). • Cooperating with others(4). • Solving problems with the help of other participants (3).

The results of the survey and interview data show areas of consistency; most STs felt that as a result of participation in the discussions, they had developed close relationships with others and gained help from their peers. Although most STs (16 STs) had felt such a belonging, some (5 STs) had felt themselves far closer and connected to their group members than others. ST 11 wrote: ‘I felt that I am part of a special and dynamic group and we can overcome the difficulties together’. on the other hand, five STs had felt themselves less connected to other members because their questions were left unanswered or their posts were ignored by others. They perceived the interactions as being less cooperative. ST 22 wrote: ‘I didn’t see so much cooperation. once I asked a question but got no answer’.

Table 1. students’ perceptions of participation in discussion forum: affective aspects.

Affective aspects

Agree Neutral Disagree

(%) (%) (%) (Q1) I enjoyed participating in the electronic discussion

forum of this course. 90 5 5

(Q4) I would enjoy participating in such a discussion forum again.

35 45 20

(Q7) the discussion forum provided less anxiety and a more relaxed environment than classroom discussion.

70 10 20

(Q8) I would have liked this course better without the discus- sion forum.

10 15 75

(Q12) I felt my classmates were interested in my posts. 15 80 5 (Q13) I was interested in reading my classmates’ posts. 30 60 10

Table 2. students’ perceptions of participation in discussion forum: sense of community.

Sense of community

Agree Neutral Disagre

(%) (%) (%) (Q9) I experienced a sense of community with the other students in my group 60 40 – (Q14) I felt I was able to help out classmates who were experiencing problems during the

course 45 45 10

(Q15) I would like the course instructor to participate more in the discussions 65 25 10 (Q16) I got help with my problem(s) via the discussion forum 75 15 10

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INNoVATIoNS IN EDuCATIoN AND TEAChINg INTERNATIoNAL 5

on the negative side, four participants felt that a cohesive group had not been formed. For example, ST 21 had felt ‘the interactions were cool without warm expressions of friendship or love. There were no words of appreciation or words of encouragements’. Two STs also expressed that they felt themselves more connected to their friends in face-to-face communication than in online environments. They considered online interaction as less personal.

Cognitive aspects

Survey results The final set of questions focused on whether STs perceived that participating in the discussions might result in cognitive gains. The results are presented in Table 3.

Most STs (85%) agreed that the discussions promoted learning by helping them understand things that they would not have understood on their own. About 65% thought that the discussion forum gave them the opportunity to ask questions they would not have asked in class discussions (Q3), and 60% agreed that writing in the discussion forum had an effect on their better understanding of the topics (Q5). The discussions were beneficial for 80% of the STs in helping them looking at topics from new perspectives (Q6); in addition, 75% had gained good ideas for implementing CL tools in their classes (Q10). Despite such cognitive gains, however, 50% of the respondents thought that they would par- ticipate more in class discussions rather than online discussions (Q11).

Interview results Interestingly, most STs admitted they had gained cognitive benefits by interacting with their peers. A thorough examination of the responses revealed the following cognitive benefits:

• gaining more in depth understanding by sharing ideas (5). • Solving the problems with the help of others (4). • Looking at the concepts from different points of view (3). • Providing an opportunity to ask questions (4). • Reflecting more on the topics by having them written (3).

The results coincided to a great extent with the results of the survey; 15 STs indicated that the discussions were helpful in boosting their cognition. For example, ST 32 mentioned: ‘Most of the time, discussions give me a better point of view, new dimensions of the matter, new ideas, and new pur- poses’. on the negative side, however, three STs thought that discussions did not help them improve cognitively. For these STs, the course syllabus and its content fulfilled their learning needs. In their view, the quality of the discussions was poor, as the others were participating for gaining grades and thus

Table 3. students’ perceptions of participation in discussion forum: cognitive aspects.

Cognitive aspects

Agree Neutral Disagree

(%) (%) (%) (Q2) I learned things in the discussion forum that I would not have figured out on

my own 85 10 5

(Q3) the electronic discussion forum gave me the opportunity to ask questions I would not have asked in class discussions

65 20 15

(Q5) the process of talking/writing through topics in the discussion forum helped me to understand them better

60 20 20

(Q6) Exchanging with other students in the discussion forum helped me look at topics from perspectives I would not have considered on my own

80 20 -

(Q10) this discussion forum gave me good ideas for teaching with the help of corpus analysis tools that I plan to implement when I start teaching

75 20 5

(Q11) I participated more in the discussion forum than I normally would in a whole class session

20 30 50

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not contributing valuable information. For instance, ST 1 wrote: ‘I see no benefit in attending these discussions wasting my time reading the nonsense of others. Instead, I could explore the issues more in depth on my own’.

Interestingly, however, when STs were asked to specify which aspect of the discussions was more important for them, i.e. social or cognitive, a large number of STs (85%) preferred the cognitive aspect. Though for most of the STs, participation in discussions had brought some social benefits, involving in social relations with others was not so important; rather, gaining cognitive and academic benefits was of utmost prominence. Most of the participants did not consider the social aspects of discussions as necessary for learning – at least for the students at the MA level. Since students at this level have very busy schedules, they expect to gain meaningful, relevant and useful learning outcomes from online discussions. ST 3 stated: ‘As an MA student, I expect that the interactions improve my cognition and learning’. or, ST 24 mentioned: ‘Social interactions may have attraction for younger students, but for grad- uate students, I think the more important dimension is gaining some academic and learning benefits’.

Discussion forum entries

The discussion forum transcripts were analysed to find evidence of STs’ social and cognitive engagement. In reporting the results, no attempts are made to relate the categories to one specific aspect (cognitive or social) since some statements exhibit overlapping indicators. As an example, expressing agreements could be considered as evidence of both social and cognitive dimension. Table 4 summarises the indi- cators of social and cognitive activities in the two groups.

Summing up the results, it can be seen that STs in the two groups were successful in expressing their attitudes, beliefs and evaluations. The high usage of these statements can be attributed to the nature of the topics and questions discussed in the course which encouraged the STs to reflect and express personal opinions regarding the use of CL tools and techniques. In contrast, STs expressed their emotions – both positive and negative – to a limited extent. Interestingly, they did not make use of humour at all.

Some STs felt comfortable expressing their personal experiences in working with the CL tools. They shared their personal stories with their classmates. For example, ST 11 explained how he and his friend checked some grammar rules in a concordancer and found some examples in contrast to what gram- mar books prescribe. on a few occasions (nine cases), some STs felt at ease to state the problems they encountered while working with CL tools or accessing online materials and asked for help from others. For example, ST 14 wrote: ‘I downloaded the videos, but am not able to get them to play on my com- puter. how can I open the files?’

on rare occasions (only six cases in group one), STs offered advice to peers to help them explore an issue in more detail. For example, having learnt about text clouds and Tagcrawd website, ST 16 suggested two more useful websites for generating text clouds. or, after working with Lextutor, ST 3 suggested using the multi-concordance function to design multiple choice language tests.

Table 4. Indicators of social and cognitive aspects in the two groups.

Indicators of social and cognitive presence group 1 group 2 Expressing personal emotions 23 6 Expressing personal attitudes, beliefs & evaluations 297 112 Expressing personal experiences 8 3 Explaining personal problems and seeking help 7 2 offering advice to peers 6 – Expressing greetings, salutations, thanks and vocatives 163 6 showing acknowledgement 10 4 asking questions 20 2 receiving answers 8 0 Expressing agreement with others 5 2 referencing to other sources 3 2 addressing the group as ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’, ‘ours’ 12 4

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INNoVATIoNS IN EDuCATIoN AND TEAChINg INTERNATIoNAL 7

The STs displayed their sense of community in several ways. one noticeable feature was the use of greetings, salutations, vocatives and words of thanks, especially in the first group. These may signify the interactivity and possible appreciation for support within the members, thus suggesting scaffolded dialogue and interpersonal communication in a group. Surprisingly, in the second group, no instances of greetings and salutations were observed. There were only two words of thanks and four instances of vocatives.

Some features were displayed to a small extent such as acknowledging (referring to others’ posts or quoting from others’ messages), directing questions to group members and receiving answers, express- ing dis/agreements, referencing to other sources and addressing the group as members of a community. A surprising observation with regard to questions was that most of them remained unanswered on the part of other STs. of 22 questions raised, only 8 received answers. Moreover, all participants in two groups avoided expressing any statements of disagreement. In rare cases (five cases) four STs inte- grated information from other sources, i.e. books, articles and websites to justify their positions or to provide additional information. For example, ST 14 made some suggestions on how to use text clouds in language learning by referring to Nik’s learning technology blog. Concerning the indicators of group cohesion – the use of ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’, ‘ours’ – there were very few cases.

Discussion and conclusion

Asynchronous discussions provoked different reactions from the STs. Though 90% expressed their enjoyment of participating in the discussions, about half of them were undecided whether they would participate in such a discussion forum again. Similar to the findings of Dixon and Dixon (2008), some STs had thought that their peers were not very helpful in creating new knowledge; as a result, some preferred to spend their time on exploring the course content on their own. Reisetter and Boris (2004) were also surprised to find ‘the relatively low value many students had for interactions with peers’ (p. 289). Furthering social relationships was not of great importance for most of the STs. As Battalio (2007) also concludes, today’s students have varied and busy lifestyles with an increasing need for independence, and, thus, they require less interaction.

Consistent with Parks (2010) observation, 65% expressed that they would like to see more instruc- tor involvement in the discussions (Q15). It appears that most students expect that their instructors participate actively in discussion forums and provide timely and substantive feedback on their posts. The participants considered student–instructor interaction more effective in their learning than stu- dent–student interaction. As an illustration ST 32 wrote: ‘I want to see your suggestions/recommenda- tions/opinions/corrections to our messages in conferencing part’. Some STs would rather have relations with their instructor than their classmates; in fact, most were inclined to direct their questions in private emails to their instructor rather than share them in the discussion list. This way they felt they would obtain more efficient feedback. one reason for this might be that learners in Iran are more accustomed to teacher-centred classes (Noora, 2008); thus, they prefer to depend more on their teachers to gain knowledge rather than discuss issues with each other.

The results of the survey revealed that 80% were less sure as to whether their classmates were inter- ested in reading their posts. A similar result is reported by Parks (2010); about 73% of the participants in Parks’ study expressed the same feeling. Such a reaction may be because STs feel their comments are disregarded by others since they receive no acknowledgements or direct reactions from others in relation to their posts; the other reason can be that STs may receive no answers for the questions they raise in the forum. In some cases, the absence of proper replies may result in feelings of disappointment in STs. Forbes (2013) also acknowledges that the students in her study displayed a tendency to post more often in discussion when peers responded to questions. As mentioned before, of 22 questions raised by the STs only 8 were answered; these were questions which were directly addressed to individual persons; the questions directed to the group as a whole, were left unanswered. Several justifications may account for this.

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First, attending an online academic discussion forum was a relatively new experience for most STs. It is very likely that as novice communicants, the STs were concentrating more on their own posts rather than others. Thus, they failed to respond to others questions.

Second, the STs had little or no previous knowledge about CL. In highly specialised subject areas like CL, it is normal for STs to ask questions which require specialised knowledge on the part of the respondents. An examination of the STs’ questions revealed that they were all CL-related. STs with limited knowledge in CL were unable to provide suitable answers. hence, the instructor had to intervene in the discussions either to guide the STs to reach a proper conclusion or to provide the correct answer. The STs’ limited knowledge in CL may also justify the infrequent usage of references to other sources in both groups as well.

And finally, STs may have refused to provide answers simply because they were too busy and did not have the time to read or respond to others messages. In fact, only 30% of the participants indicated they were interested in reading their classmates’ posts (Q 13); 60% were undecided. The participants in Parks (2010) study showed a higher level of interest (62.5%). Major factors affecting the STs’ less interest in reading others’ posts (reported in detail in another article in press) were: limited access to computers and the Internet or high-speed Internet, long and boring posts with no or little added value, the dom- inance of some talkative STs and superficial answers repetitions of other messages.

The observed diversity in the two groups regarding the use of greetings, salutations, thanks and voc- atives, might be attributable to the online participants’ tendency to mimic their peers (Lowenthal, 2012). unlike STs in group two, the first STs who started discussions in the first group, had the habit of using such expressions. It is likely that this behaviour might have encouraged others to use these features.

Consistent with Lowenthal (2012), all participants used affective indicators to a very limited extent. This might be partially due to the co-educational nature of the courses offered which may have hin- dered the participants to express their emotions freely. Another reason may relate to the public display feature of the forums. Since in asynchronous interactions, messages are solely text-based and a full record of all messages is kept for later reference, this may impel the participants to post messages with low socioemotional content. This is especially true in training courses in teacher education programmes where participants are would-be teachers. Such academic and professional contexts may compel par- ticipants to be more formal and use lower instances of genuine displays of affection. Another possible reason could be the STs’ emphasis on cognitive aspects of interactions rather than the establishment of interpersonal relationships.

Concerning cognitive aspects, an interesting finding of the present study was that no indicators of disagreement were found in both groups. This result concurs with other researchers’ observations (Forbes, 2013; Lowenthal, 2012). Lack of disagreement statements might be due to the fact that STs may have perceived it offensive to disagree with their classmates publicly. They might have done so, out of courtesy, in order not to appear critical and, thus, maintain positive relationships in the community. Respecting others is highly valued in Iranian culture. Also, it may reflect participants’ low interest in reading others posts. As the results indicated, most STs of this study were ignorant of others posts. The few cases of acknowledgements, dis/agreements, answers to questions, etc. reflect this fact.

To conclude, this study, though limited in scope, suggests that promoting interactions in postgrad education contexts should aim at developing higher order thinking and critical reflection rather than establishing social relationships among the participants. Most pre-service teachers would rather gain cognitive benefits from participation in the discussions rather than affective and community gains. Therefore, online instructors should strive to find ways to encourage students to be open in expressing their views and be critical of each other’s ideas. This is especially important in teacher-centred edu- cational settings like Iran where criticality and independence of thought are not so valued. one way to do so is to bring up such controversial questions that require STs’ critical reflective engagement in the discussions. Instructors can also consider more effective use of situational triggers to initiate and encourage more in-depth, meaningful and reflective discussions. Moreover, while managing online discussions for novice communicants, to encourage creative discussions, more guidance should be

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provided by the instructors. Future studies could be conducted to find the proper ways of promoting such fruitful discussions among the participants in online courses.

Notes on contributors Alice Ebrahimi holds a PhD in TEFL from Alzahra university, Iran. She has conducted some workshops in concordancing inside and outside of Iran and published some articles. her main areas of interest are CL, CALL, teacher education and discourse analysis.

Esmail Faghih is an emeritus professor of TEFL at Alzahra university who is currently supervising at Islamic Azad university (South Tehran Branch), Iran. he has published numerous books and articles on language learning and teaching. he is also renowned for his translations from or into English.

Mohmmad Dabir-Moghaddam is the head of department of linguistics at Allameh Tabatabai university and a permanent member and the vice-president for scientific and research affairs at academy of Persian language and literature.

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