Tracing Ideas and Participation in an Asynchronous Online Discussion across Individual and Group Levels over Time

This paper advances a methodology to support a coordinated multi-level analysis of individual actions and group dynamics in asynchronous online discussions. The approach uses log-file data to examine group and individual participation patterns, and argumentation coding of post contents to probe developmental trajectories of individual and collective understandings. Importantly, these traces of ideas and behaviors are coordinated within and across levels. To illustrate the method, the paper presents an analysis of five undergraduate students taking part in a five-day online discussion to address a business challenge. Findings provided insight into the ways in which phenomena at the group and individual levels interrelated and drove each other, specifically the complex interdependency between group and individual willingness to engage in debate, and how one dominant individual’s unfounded presumption of consensus led to early abandonment (rather than conscious rebuttal) of ideas.