International
Journal of
Educational
Technology

Student Attitudes Toward and Participation In Electronic Discussions

- Sean Williams, Clemson University
- Cindy Pury, Clemson University

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study conducted on Clemson University’s electronic collaboration tool “Collaborative Learning Environment” (CLE)  in order to determine student opinion of the proprietary collaboration tool, and specifically why students didn’t collaborate with each other but instead repeated the teacher-as-questioner and student-as-answerer paradigm. Data was collected through an electronic survey on these five questions to determine student opinion: 1) how many topics students read; 2) how many replies students posted; 3) how often students used the discussion feature to ask questions or address controversial topics; 4) how much students like the discussion feature; 5) how much fun online discussion was for students. For comparison, the respondents were divided into two comparison groups, those whose participation was mandatory, and those whose participation was optional. Analysis of the data suggests that contrary to much literature on electronic collaboration suggesting students enjoy online collaboration, our students didn’t enjoy online discussion regardless of whether the discussion was optional or mandatory.  However, students didn’t view it as a waste of time either, reporting that they found the online discussion useful for asking questions, addressing technical questions or discussing topics that might be controversial. Based upon these mixed results, we recommend experimenting with online discussion to discover ways that it can be both a good teaching tool and an activity students find enjoyable. We conclude by outlining an experimental online collaboration pedagogy that breaks students into teams of 3-5 people, gives each team a separate question or problem to solve in a limited amount of time, requires the team to negotiate a single solution to the problem and finally to report on the solution. Anecdotal feedback on the pedagogy suggests students enjoy the time-constrained, electronic, problem solving activities.

Introduction

The authors, faculty members in Professional Communication (SW) and Psychology (CP), were early adopters of Clemson University’s “Collaborative Learning Environment,” an in-house version of electronic collaboration tools like WebCT and Blackboard.  However, our initial efforts to use the CLE discussion feature failed to produce the results we hoped for. Although we encouraged (CP)—and required (SW)—our students to interact with one another through the CLE, students did not participate in discussions as much as we had hoped they would.  Even worse, when they did, they only talked to us, the instructors, rather than to each other.  Thus, the CLE did not generate discussion among students but instead just repeated the traditional classroom pattern of teacher-as-questioner and student-as-respondent.

Research in computer-integrated education suggests, however, that students react favorably to using technology in the classroom. For example, it allows communication “on the level of ideas rather than on the level of personality” according to Cooper and Selfe (1990). Hartman et al (1991) found that instructors in networked environments typically interact more with students and especially with weaker students. More recently Polichar and Bagwell (2000) argued that online collaboration increases educational gains for students because students become co-constructors of course material with their professors. Klobas and Haddow (2000) claimed that students in a course which required collaborative teamwork through electronic networks attributed their learning primarily to the electronic collaboration and not to other course activities. Duin and Hansen (1996) summarized this optimistic opinion of online collaboration writing that “students send most of their messages to students in their collaborative group, and that they use the network as a place to store and share information, to argue and reach consensus . . . to request feedback from students outside their group as well as from the instructor.”

Online discussion was used by one of us (CP) as an adjunct to a Human Sexual Behavior class taught in a 150-person section.  Topics for discussion included circumcision for male infants, prescription coverage of birth control and Viagra, and gender differences in communication, among others. These topics were selected from those that generated successful discussion in a smaller section (approximately 40 persons) taught in a previous summer session.   Each question asked students to consider their own opinion on these topics (e.g., "If you had an infant son, would you have him circumcised?  Why or why not?")  Additionally, students were asked to read prior responses first, then respond to the opinions of others as well as to the questions.  Finally, students were told that active participation in discussion would count favorably if their final grades were borderline. 

In the second classroom where participation was required (SW), students were asked to engage each other in discussions both in and out of classroom. The course,  which enrolls approximately 25 students per semester was an upper division English service course titled “Advanced Technical Writing” that prepares students in technological fields for workplace communication tasks. Because the course focused on crafting documents according to the complex interactions of audience, purpose, and social situation, students were asked open-ended, hypothetical questions that called for them to react to communication scenarios. The topics, for example, asked students to discuss the ethics of preparing documentation that obscures a product’s dangerous side effects, to comment on the role of generic conventions in workplace documents and when those conventions should be challenged, and to explore the implications of sexual harassment in project management. Students were required to post at least two messages per week, one of which was a response to a classmate, and another which represented the student’s original thinking on the topic. The combination of both responses accounted for a percentage of the student’s grade.

Prior research indicates that our expectations in using online collaboration were on the mark. We expected that students would talk about things online, like sexuality or ethics, that they might not in face-to-face conversations and that they would ask questions of each other that they might not in front of a whole class. We expected that online collaboration would increase their interest in the course material and that conversation with peers (and not the professor) would help students interpret course material in ways that were meaningful to them. Above all, however, we expected that students would be eager to use this new technology and participate more frequently than they did.

Student participation in the discussions was minimal, with fewer postings than expected (e.g., in the Sexual Behavior class, an average of 5 - 10 postings per question, with a small number of students contributing postings for multiple questions and in the Technical Writing class, exactly two postings per week per student—the required minimum).

To explain this under-utilization, we undertook a campus-wide survey of student attitudes toward and participation in electronic discussion.  We asked students how often they read and posted on the discussion feature, how they were using the discussion feature, and  what they got out of it.  We hypothesized that student participation in electronic discussion might be correlated with the stated use of the CLE (i.e. optional or required) and attitudes toward electronic discussion.  

Method

We emailed our survey to the student body at Clemson University (approximately 17,000 undergraduates and graduates), along with a request for voluntary participation, asking students to hit "reply" on their email program and complete the survey as in-line text. We received enough replies in the first two days for the purposes of this study and kept only these replies, recognizing, of course, that students who were particularly satisfied or unsatisfied with online discussion were probably more likely to respond than students with a more moderate opinion.

Of the 353 students who replied in the first two days, 105 (30%) reported current enrollment in a course which used the CLE Discussion feature.   Of these 105, 98 participants (93%) completed the entire survey; these 98 responses were used for further analysis. 

Ways in which students used the CLE was measured by asking students what types of topics they observed being discussed using the CLE.  Student attitudes toward the CLE were assessed by asking students for their overall evaluation of the CLE discussion.  The exact wording of both questions are presented in the Appendix as Questions 4b and 4c.

Student use of the discussion feature was measured by four questions: did they read any of the questions, did they read any of the replies, did they post any questions, and did they post any replies.  For ease of interpretation, and to reduce the chance of finding a statistically significant result due to error, we collapsed these four measures into two: Reading (of both topics and replies) and Posting (of both topics and replies). Although our survey asked participants to respond on a scale with multiple options, such as "none", "a few", "most" or "all", a preliminary look at the data suggested that there was a bimodal distribution for all activities, indicating that students either participated in a given activity or they did not.  Thus, participation data was further collapsed into those who said they read or posted at least once and those who did not.

Results

Descriptive Statistics: Fifty-eight students (59.11%) reported that their course required participation in the CLE discussion feature.  Overall reported participation in online discussion is presented in Table 1, and reported uses for online discussion and attitudes toward it are presented in Table 2.   Note that for a minority of students (less than 15%), the electronic discussion was a waste of time, and for an even smaller minority (approximately 5%), electronic discussion was "fun." 

Table 1.  Percent of students (N = 98) reading or posting to online discussion

Table 2.  Reported use of and attitudes towards online discussion

Reading, Posting, and Mandatory versus Optional Participation

As might be expected, students who reported a course requirement for participation generally reported greater use of the online discussion board than did those for whom it was optional.  As shown in Table 3, students who said they read more postings and who posted more themselves were much more likely to be enrolled in a class with mandatory participation rather than with optional participation.

Table 3.  Required use of discussion and reading or posting to the online discussion.

Uses of Online Discussion and Self-Reported Reading and Posting

Chi-squared analyses of the relationship between various stated uses of online discussion and reading of and posting to the online discussion yielded several significant relationships (p < .05), as summarized in Table 4. 

Table 4.  Summary of chi² analyses of the relationship between attitude toward online discussion and self-reported reading of and posting to the discussion.

Although many uses had a significant association with reading the discussion, only application of material to student's lives had a significant relationship with posting to the discussion.  As can be seen in Figures 1 – 4 below, in every case of a significant relationship, students who endorsed a particular use of the discussion were more likely to report reading some of the discussion.  Figure 3b indicates that there was a parallel relationship for application of course material to student's lives and posting to the discussion.

Figure 1.  Percentage of students who said they did not use (N = 55) or used (N = 43) online discussion to ask questions about the course material and self-reported reading of discussion

Figure 2.  Percentage of students who said they did not use (N = 65) or used (N = 33) online discussion to apply the course material to additional topics and self-reported reading of discussion

Figure 3a.  Percentage of students who said they did not use (N = 73) or used (N = 25) online discussion to apply the course material to student's lives and self-reported reading of discussion

Figure 3b.  Percentage of students who said they did not use (N = 73) or used (N = 25) online discussion to apply the course material to student's lives and self-reported posting to discussion

Figure 4. Percentage of students who said they did not use (N = 83) or used (N = 17) online discussion to address technical issues or problems and self-reported reading of discussion

Attitudes Toward Online Discussion and Self-Reported Reading and Posting

Chi-squared analyses of the relationship between attitudes and reading and posting also yielded a few significant relationships (p < .05), as summarized in Table 5. 

Table 5.  Summary of chi² analyses of the relationship between attitude toward online discussion and self-reported reading of and posting to the discussion.

Once again, only application of material, in this case to real-world problems, had a significant relationship with posting to the discussion.  As can be seen in Figures 5a and 6, students who said that the discussion helped them to apply course material to real-world problems and those who said it helped them interpret course material were more likely to report reading some of the discussion.  Figure 5b indicates that those who said it helped them apply course material to real-world problems were also more likely to post to the discussion.

Figure 5a. Percentage of students did not agree (N = 68) or agreed (N = 30) that online discussion helped them apply class material to real-world problems and self-reported reading of discussion

Figure 5b. Percentage of students did not agree (N = 68) or agreed (N = 30) that online discussion helped them apply class material to real-world problems and self-reported posting to discussion

Figure 6. Percentage of students did not agree (N = 78) or agreed (N = 20) that online discussion helped them interpret class material and self-reported reading of discussion

Overall, our results indicate that although many different uses of online discussion and attitudes toward it may impact reading online discussion, only using the discussion board (and seeing it used) as a way to apply course material in their own lives was associated with increased posting.  Importantly, a major attitude toward online discussion that might be expected to lead to the type of student-to-student exchange we had hoped for (and failed to get)—learning what classmates think—was unrelated to either reading of or posting to the discussion. 

Our initial pedagogical reasons for integrating online discussion into our classes were partly successful, therefore, because students seemed to use the discussion feature to interpret the course material in ways meaningful to themselves and their peers. Integrating the discussion feature also allowed us to construct classes that partly reflected the findings of research in online collaboration which suggested that students use online collaboration to talk both to peers and to teachers.

Conclusions

In spite of modest pedagogical successes—and “modest” is a key word—online discussion fails at its promise to engage students.  Very few students articulated that the online discussion was fun, and many thought the online discussion was a waste of time. More importantly, the results seem to question research that suggests students’ generally have a positive reaction to classes that integrate online collaboration. Many students clearly did not enjoy the online aspect of their courses, even if they did find the discussion feature somewhat useful for applying course material.  Those who did find the discussion board useful for applying course material to their lives or other real-world problems were the most likely to be active, posting participants.

Recommendations

Since the results of the study indicated that online discussion wasn’t a complete pedagogical failure, although it didn’t necessarily engage students either, we recommend experimenting with online discussion to discover ways that it can be both a good teaching tool and an activity students find enjoyable and relevant to their own lives or other real-world problems.

In the time since the initial study was undertaken, we have, for example, experimented with altering the dynamics of online discussion to require interaction for specific problem solving activities related to course material as opposed to general questioning about course material. In this method, students are broken into smaller teams of 3-5 people, and each team is given a separate question or problem to solve in a limited amount of time, usually defined in minutes. Each team is required to generate a single solution to the problem which means that discussion occurs initially to define the problem, then proceeds to team members offering possible solutions to the problem, and concludes with a negotiation of a single, final answer.

In an activity like that described above, students are compelled to interact with one another and are willing to do so because their solutions to real- problems become topics for discussion in the class. Students, that is, engage in the type of activity that scholarship in online collaboration suggests they should: students become co-constructors of course material with their professors; students use the network as a place to examine alternative viewpoints and reach a reasoned consensus on a problem that is relevant to them.

Initial anecdotal evidence suggests that students find this method valuable and engaging. Some sample student comments taken from course evaluations where the methodology outlined above was used include:

§         “Love the way class is taught and technology is incorporated into the class”

§         “I feel that [the instructor] is going about teaching . . . the right way by brining software and computer skills into play.”

§         “I like the technology that [the instructor] incorporates into the class.”

§         “Using interactive teaching methods greatly helped me learn the material.”

§         “Successful and interesting teaching methods”

§         “Enjoyed the hands on computer aspect of the course”

While these comments are certainly not conclusive evidence, they do show that students find the method of real problem-based, time-sensitive, collaboration valuable.  Perhaps most telling of the sample comments, though, is that of the six sample comments, three directly express that the student enjoyed the way technology was used in the class and the others suggest that student learning increased. 

A second recommendation, and one at odds with the first, is that we should explore the role of socializing—talking to have fun—in online collaboration.  Task-based collaborations such as that outlined above allow little time for students to congeal into something resembling a community through exploration of side issues or topics specifically of interest to them. Online community research, such as that conducted by Sherry Turkle, Howard Rheingold and others suggests that virtual communities evolve as they do in the physical world by people exploring shared interests, often through talk whose only purpose is building community or “intersubjectivity” (Eggins and Slade 1997). If students are truly to enjoy collaborating online, it seems that in addition to the task-based aspect of collaboration, a social aspect needs to be present. Research on collaborative authoring suggests something similar. Barnum (1993) suggested, for example, that successful collaborations are social and task-based.

Perhaps the solution to our question, “Why won’t students talk to each other through the electronic collaboration tools that we use in our classes,” is that we are either focused too much on students interacting and exploring their own interests or we are too focused on students getting work done. The answer it seems, like most good answers to educational questions, lies somewhere between what we as teachers want our students to do and what our students themselves want to do. The challenge is using online discussions in a way that allows us to strike that middle ground. 

References

Barnum, Carol M (1993). “Working with people.” In Carol M. Barnum & Saul Carliner (Eds.), Techniques for Technical Communicators (pp 107-36). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon. 

Cooper, Marilyn M. & Selfe, Cynthia L (1990). “Computer conferences and learning: Authority, resistance and internally persuasive discourse.” College English 52, 847-69.

Duin, Ann Hill & Hansen, Craig (1994). “Reading and writing on computer networks as social construction and social interaction.”  In Cynthia L. Selfe & Susan Hilligoss (Eds.), Literacy and Computers: The Complications of Teaching and Learning with Technology (pp. 89-112). New York: MLA.

Eggins, Suzzanne & Slade, Diana (1997). Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Cassell Publishing.

Hartman et al. (1991). “Patterns of social interaction in learning to write: Some effects of network technologies.”  Written Communication 8, 79-113.

Klobas, Jane E. & Haddow Gary (2000). “International computer-supported collaborative teamwork in business education: A case study and evaluation.” International Journal of Educational Technology 2.1. Available online http://www.outreach.uiuc.edu/ijet/v2n1/klobas/index.html

Polichar, Valerie E. & Bagwell, Christine. “Pedagogical principles of learning in the online environment.” Syllabus 13:9, 52-56. 

Rheingold, Howard (1993). The Virtual Community (pp 1-16). NY: Addison, Wesley, Longman. 

Turkle, Sherry S. (1995). Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. NY:  Simon and Schuster. 

Appendix

Discussion Feature Usage Survey

The following questions are about your usage of the CLE's discussion feature (accessible through the coffee cup icon). They ask specifically about courses FOR WHICH YOU ARE A STUDENT.

1) Have you ever been enrolled in a course which used the CLE class discussion feature?

___ Yes (go to question 2)

___ No

___ Don't know

1b) (if "No" or "Don't know") Thank you for your help!

2) Are you currently enrolled in a course that uses the CLE class discussion feature?

___ Yes (go to question 3)

___ No

___ Don't know

2b) (if "No" or "Don't know") Thank you for your help!

3) Please think of only ONE of your current courses for which your instructor offers the CLE discussion. Please answer all remaining questions based on your current experience with that particular course.

3a) What is the level of the course?

____ 100 level

____ 200 level

____ 300 level

____ 400 level

____ 600 level

____ 800 level

3b) Approximately how many students are enrolled in your section? ____

3c) Approximately what percentage of each class meeting is devoted to IN-CLASS discussion?

____ 0 - 10%

____ 10 - 25%

____ 25 - 50%

____ 50 - 75%

____ over 75%

3d) Is participation in the CLE-BASED ONLINE discussion mandatory or optional for students?

____ mandatory

____ optional

4) Please consider the CLE-based online discussion for the course you described above.

4a) In which of the following ways have you used the CLE-based discussion feature (the coffee cup icon) this semester?

4a.1) I have read

___ none of the topics

___ a few of the topics

___ most of the topics

___ all of the topics

4a.2) I have read

___ none of the replies

___ a few of the replies

___ most of the replies

___ all of the replies

4a.3) I have posted

___ no new topics

___ one new topic

___ more than one new topic

4a.4) I have posted

___ no replies

___ one reply

___ more than one reply

4b) What types of topics have you observed being discussed using the CLE discussion in your course? Please check all that apply.

____ Questions about the course material

____ Technical issues or problems related to the course material

____ Work on independent or class projects

____ Application of course material to students' lives

____ Application of course materials to topics not covered in class (e.g., current events, additional case examples)

____ Controversial topics

____ Other - please explain:

4c) Overall, how would you evaluate the CLE discussion as it is being used in your current course? Please check all that apply.

____ It has helped me to learn the course material.

____ It has helped me to apply the material I learn in class to real-world problems.

____ It has stimulated me to think about course material in new ways.

____ It is a nice way to learn what my classmates think about the course material.

____ It has helped me to ask questions I might not have asked otherwise.

____ It has been a waste of time.

____ It has been fun.

____ It has helped me in interpreting the course material.

____ It has helped me to identify the major points in the course.