Graduate Students' Experiences of Challenges in Online Asynchronous Discussions

This paper presents one of five categories of findings of a qualitative study of students' experiences of challenges encountered in a web-based graduate program. The findings relate to the category of experiences with online asynchronous discussions. Data collection relied on a discussion, questionnaire and interview all conducted within WebCTTM. The category's findings were grouped into four sub-categories of challenges as follows: student behaviour; text-only, online communication; purpose and quality of the discussion; and forum features. Challenges related to students' behaviour included domination of the discussion by individual students or groups of students resulting in feelings of exclusion, frustration and inadequacy. Text-only communication caused difficulties related to misinterpretation and conveying and deriving intent. Challenges related to the purpose and value of the discussion resulted from low quality and high quantities of postings to meet grade requirements. Technical features that presented challenges included the inability to delete messages.

[1]  Michael Bieber,et al.  Collaborative Discourse Structures in Computer Mediated Group Communications , 1999, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[2]  Mark Guzdial,et al.  Exploring the lack of dialogue in computer-supported collaborative learning , 2002, CSCL.

[3]  Linda M. Harasim,et al.  Online Education: Perspectives on a New Environment , 1990 .

[4]  G. Savage,et al.  Experimental and experiential approaches to teaching face‐to‐face and computer‐mediated group discussion , 1996 .

[5]  Mary McComb.  Augmenting a Group Discussion Course with Computer-Mediated Communication in a Small College Setting. , 1993 .

[6]  Linda S. Lotto.  Qualitative Data Analysis: A Sourcebook of New Methods , 1986 .

[7]  Drew Tiene.  Online discussions: a survey of advantages and disadvantages compared to face-to-face discussions , 2000 .

[8]  Donald J. Winiecki.  Keeping the Thread: Adapting Conversational Practice to Help Distance Students and Instructors Manage Discussions in an Asynchronous Learning Network , 1999 .

[9]  D. Newman.  An Experiment in Group Learning Technology: Evaluating Critical Thinking in Face-to-Face and Computer-Supported Seminars. , 1996 .

[10]  Judith C. Lapadat,et al.  Written Interaction: A Key Component in Online Learning , 2006, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[11]  Scott L. Althaus.  Please Scroll down for Article Communication Education Computer-mediated Communication in the University Classroom: an Experiment with On-line Discussions , 2022 .

[12]  Elizabeth Murphy,et al.  Investigating the multiple worlds of teaching through multiloguing , 2001, J. Educ. Technol. Soc..

[13]  M. Warschauer.  Computer-Mediated Collaborative Learning: Theory and Practice. , 1997 .

[14]  J. Biggs,et al.  Teaching For Quality Learning At University , 1999 .

[15]  Faye Wiesenberg,et al.  Teaching a Graduate Program Using Computer Mediated Conferencing Software. , 1995 .

[16]  Lourdes Ortega,et al.  Processes and outcomes in networked classroom interaction: Defining the research agenda for L2 computer-assisted classroom discussion , 1997 .

[17]  Robert Heckman,et al.  A content analytic comparison of FTF and ALN case-study discussions , 2003, 36th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2003. Proceedings of the.

[18]  Elizabeth J. Burge,et al.  Learning in a computer conferenced contexts: The learner''s perspective , 2008 .