Initial Validation of Listening Behavior Typologies for Online Discussions Using Microanalytic Case Studies

Collaborative participation in online discussions requires interacting with the ideas posted by others, yet many students do so ineffectually. This study conceptualizes these actions as online “listening” behaviors and proposes six prototypical behavioral patterns. To test these prototypes, microanalytic case studies were conducted. Five cases with distinct listening profiles are described: “Gigi”, showed a content coverage approach, viewing all her classmates’ posts but not drawing on them in her own; “Stephanie”, showed an interactive approach, focusing on a smaller number of posts, but building on them in her contributions. “Ron” showed a targeted approach, focusing on particular kinds of posts in the discussion and disregarding the rest; “Darren” showed a social coverage approach to listening, briefly scanning many posts and acknowledging his classmate’s contributions in a conversational tone; and “Julie”, showed a disregard for listening, ignoring the majority of the posts in the discussion. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

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