Facilitator presence and identity in online discourse: use of positioning theory as an analytic framework

In this study, positioning theory was used as a theoretical framework for analyzing facilitator presence and identity in online discussion transcripts. The study has two purposes. First, the study provides a description of naturally occurring facilitator positioning by facilitators and students in two online and two blended classes. Second, it confirms and demonstrates positioning theory’s usefulness, for both research and pedagogical purposes, as framework through which presence and identity in asynchronous forums may be evaluated. Findings show that facilitator positioning was more likely to occur through facilitator-written messages than through student-written ones, and to be either tacit or performative in nature. Accountative facilitator positioning tended to occur infrequently and only as a second order discourse act in response to a student request. More notably, students infrequently positioned facilitators, relying on tacit assumptions that traditional roles would be supported through the discourse.

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