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 thefindings of a study conducted on Clemson University’s electronic collaborationtool “Collaborative Learning Environment” (CLE)  in order to determine student opinion of the proprietarycollaboration tool, and specifically why students didn’t collaborate with eachother but instead repeated the teacher-as-questioner and student-as-answererparadigm. Data was collected through an electronic survey on these fivequestions to determine student opinion: 1) how many topics students read; 2)how many replies students posted; 3) how often students used the discussionfeature to ask questions or address controversial topics; 4) how much studentslike the discussion feature; 5) how much fun online discussion was forstudents. For comparison, the respondents were divided into two comparisongroups, those whose participation was mandatory, and those whose participationwas optional. Analysis of the data suggests that contrary to much literature onelectronic collaboration suggesting students enjoy online collaboration, ourstudents didn’t enjoy online discussion regardless of whether the discussionwas optional or mandatory.  However,students didn’t view it as a waste of time either, reporting that they foundthe online discussion useful for asking questions, addressing technicalquestions or discussing topics that might be controversial. Based upon thesemixed results, we recommend experimenting with online discussion to discoverways that it can be both a good teaching tool and an activity students findenjoyable. We conclude by outlining an experimental online collaborationpedagogy that breaks students into teams of 3-5 people, gives each team aseparate question or problem to solve in a limited amount of time, requires theteam to negotiate a single solution to the problem and finally to report on thesolution. Anecdotal feedback on the pedagogy suggests students enjoy thetime-constrained, electronic, problem solving activities.

Introduction

The authors, facultymembers in Professional Communication (SW) and Psychology (CP), were earlyadopters of Clemson University’s “Collaborative Learning Environment,” anin-house version of electronic collaboration tools like WebCT and Blackboard.  However, our initial efforts to use the CLE discussionfeature failed to produce the results we hoped for. Although we encouraged (CP)—andrequired (SW)—our students to interact with one another through the CLE,students did not participate in discussions as much as we had hoped theywould.  Even worse, when they did, they onlytalked to us, the instructors, rather than to each other.  Thus, the CLE did not generate discussionamong students but instead just repeated the traditional classroom pattern ofteacher-as-questioner and student-as-respondent.

Research incomputer-integrated education suggests, however, that students react favorablyto using technology in the classroom. For example, it allows communication “onthe level of ideas rather than on the level of personality” according to Cooperand Selfe (1990). Hartman et al (1991) found that instructors in networkedenvironments typically interact more with students and especially with weakerstudents. More recently Polichar and Bagwell (2000) argued that onlinecollaboration increases educational gains for students because students becomeco-constructors of course material with their professors. Klobas and Haddow(2000) claimed that students in a course which required collaborative teamworkthrough electronic networks attributed their learning primarily to theelectronic 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, toargue and reach consensus . . . to request feedback from students outside theirgroup as well as from the instructor.”

Online discussion wasused by one of us (CP) as an adjunct to a Human Sexual Behavior class taught ina 150-person section.  Topics fordiscussion included circumcision for male infants, prescription coverage ofbirth control and Viagra, and gender differences in communication, amongothers. These topics were selected from those that generated successfuldiscussion in a smaller section (approximately 40 persons) taught in a previoussummer session.   Each question asked studentsto consider their own opinion on these topics (e.g., "If you had an infantson, 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 activeparticipation in discussion would count favorably if their final grades wereborderline. 

In the secondclassroom where participation was required (SW), students were asked to engage eachother in discussions both in and out of classroom. The course,  which enrolls approximately 25 students persemester was an upper division English service course titled “Advanced TechnicalWriting” that prepares students in technological fields for workplacecommunication tasks. Because the course focused on crafting documents accordingto the complex interactions of audience, purpose, and social situation,students were asked open-ended, hypothetical questions that called for them toreact to communication scenarios. The topics, for example, asked students to discussthe ethics of preparing documentation that obscures a product’s dangerous sideeffects, to comment on the role of generic conventions in workplace documentsand when those conventions should be challenged, and to explore theimplications of sexual harassment in project management. Students were requiredto post at least two messages per week, one of which was a response to aclassmate, and another which represented the student’s original thinking on thetopic. The combination of both responses accounted for a percentage of thestudent’s grade.

Prior researchindicates that our expectations in using online collaboration were on the mark.We expected that students would talk about things online, like sexuality orethics, that they might not in face-to-face conversations and that they wouldask questions of each other that they might not in front of a whole class. Weexpected that online collaboration would increase their interest in the coursematerial and that conversation with peers (and not the professor) would helpstudents interpret course material in ways that were meaningful to them. Aboveall, however, we expected that students would be eager to use this newtechnology and participate more frequently than they did.

Student participationin the discussions was minimal, with fewer postings than expected (e.g., in theSexual Behavior class, an average of 5 - 10 postings per question, with a smallnumber of students contributing postings for multiple questions and in theTechnical Writing class, exactly two postings per week per student—the requiredminimum).

To explain thisunder-utilization, we undertook a campus-wide survey of student attitudestoward and participation in electronic discussion.  We asked students how often they read and posted on thediscussion feature, how they were using the discussion feature, and  what they got out of it.  We hypothesized that student participationin 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 bodyat 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 studyand kept only these replies, recognizing, of course, that students who wereparticularly satisfied or unsatisfied with online discussion were probably morelikely to respond than students with a more moderate opinion.

Of the 353 studentswho replied in the first two days, 105 (30%) reported current enrollment in acourse which used the CLE Discussion feature.  Of these 105, 98 participants (93%) completed the entire survey; these98 responses were used for further analysis. 

Ways in which studentsused the CLE was measured by asking students what types of topics they observedbeing discussed using the CLE.  Studentattitudes toward the CLE were assessed by asking students for their overallevaluation of the CLE discussion.  Theexact wording of both questions are presented in the Appendix as Questions 4b and4c.

Studentuse of the discussion feature was measured by four questions: did they read anyof the questions, did they read any of the replies, did they post anyquestions, and did they post any replies.  For ease of interpretation, and to reduce the chance of finding a statisticallysignificant result due to error, we collapsed these four measures into two:Reading (of both topics and replies) and Posting (of both topics and replies). Althoughour survey asked participants to respond on a scale with multiple options, suchas "none", "a few", "most" or "all", apreliminary look at the data suggested that there was a bimodal distribution forall activities, indicating that students either participated in a givenactivity or they did not.  Thus, participationdata was further collapsed into those who said they read or posted at leastonce and those who did not.

Results

DescriptiveStatistics: Fifty-eight students (59.11%) reported thattheir course required participation in the CLE discussion feature.  Overall reported participation in onlinediscussion is presented in Table 1, and reported uses for online discussion andattitudes toward it are presented in Table 2.   Note that for a minority of students (less than 15%), theelectronic 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 orposting to online discussion

Table 2. Reported use of and attitudes towards online discussion

Reading, Posting, and Mandatory versus Optional Participation

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

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

Uses of Online Discussion and Self-Reported Reading and Posting

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

Table 4.  Summary of chi²analyses of the relationship between attitudetoward online discussion and self-reported reading of and posting to thediscussion.

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

Figure 1.  Percentage of students who said they did notuse (N = 55) or used (N = 43) online discussion to ask questions about thecourse material and self-reported reading of discussion

Figure 2.  Percentage of students who said they did notuse (N = 65) or used (N = 33) online discussion to apply the course material toadditional topics and self-reported reading of discussion

Figure 3a.  Percentage of students who said they did notuse (N = 73) or used (N = 25) online discussion to apply the course material tostudent's lives and self-reported reading of discussion

Figure 3b.  Percentage of students who said they did notuse (N = 73) or used (N = 25) online discussion to apply the course material tostudent's lives and self-reported posting to discussion

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

Attitudes Toward Online Discussion and Self-Reported Reading and Posting

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

Table 5.  Summary of chi²analyses of the relationship betweenattitude toward online discussion and self-reported reading of and posting tothe discussion.

Once again, only application of material,in this case to real-world problems, had a significant relationship withposting to the discussion.  As can beseen in Figures 5a and 6, students who said that the discussion helped them toapply course material to real-world problems and those who said it helped theminterpret course material were more likely to report reading some of thediscussion.  Figure 5b indicates that thosewho said it helped them apply course material to real-world problems were alsomore likely to post to the discussion.

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

Figure 5b. Percentage of students did not agree (N= 68) or agreed (N = 30) that online discussion helped them apply classmaterial 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 materialand self-reported reading of discussion

Overall, our resultsindicate that although many different uses of online discussion and attitudestoward 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 wasassociated with increased posting.  Importantly,a major attitude toward online discussion that might be expected to lead to thetype of student-to-student exchange we had hoped for (and failed to get)—learningwhat classmates think—was unrelated to either reading of or posting to thediscussion. 

Our initialpedagogical reasons for integrating online discussion into our classes werepartly successful, therefore, because students seemed to use the discussion featureto interpret the course material in ways meaningful to themselves and theirpeers. Integrating the discussion feature also allowed us to construct classesthat partly reflected the findings of research in online collaboration whichsuggested that students use online collaboration to talk both to peers and toteachers.

Conclusions

In spite of modestpedagogical successes—and “modest” is a key word—online discussion fails at itspromise to engage students.  Very fewstudents articulated that the online discussion was fun, and many thought theonline discussion was a waste of time. More importantly, the results seem toquestion research that suggests students’ generally have a positive reaction toclasses that integrate online collaboration. Many students clearly did notenjoy the online aspect of their courses, even if they did find the discussionfeature somewhat useful for applying course material.  Those who did find the discussion board useful for applying coursematerial to their lives or other real-world problems were the most likely to beactive, posting participants.

Recommendations

Since the results ofthe study indicated that online discussion wasn’t a complete pedagogicalfailure, although it didn’t necessarily engage students either, we recommendexperimenting with online discussion to discover ways that it can be both agood teaching tool and an activity students find enjoyable and relevant totheir own lives or other real-world problems.

In the time since theinitial study was undertaken, we have, for example, experimented with alteringthe dynamics of online discussion to require interaction for specific problemsolving activities related to course material as opposed to general questioningabout course material. In this method, students are broken into smaller teamsof 3-5 people, and each team is given a separate question or problem to solvein a limited amount of time, usually defined in minutes. Each team is requiredto generate a single solution to the problem which means that discussion occursinitially to define the problem, then proceeds to team members offeringpossible solutions to the problem, and concludes with a negotiation of asingle, final answer.

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

Initial anecdotalevidence suggests that students find this method valuable and engaging. Somesample student comments taken from course evaluations where the methodologyoutlined above was used include:

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

§        “Ifeel that [the instructor] is going about teaching . . . the right way bybrining software and computer skills into play.”

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

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

§        “Successfuland interesting teaching methods”

§        “Enjoyedthe hands on computer aspect of the course”

While these commentsare certainly not conclusive evidence, they do show that students find themethod 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 thestudent enjoyed the way technology was used in the class and the others suggestthat student learning increased. 

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

Perhaps the solutionto our question, “Why won’t students talk to each other through the electroniccollaboration tools that we use in our classes,” is that we are either focusedtoo much on students interacting and exploring their own interests or we aretoo focused on students getting work done. The answer it seems, like most goodanswers to educational questions, lies somewhere between what we as teacherswant our students to do and what our students themselves want to do. Thechallenge is using online discussions in a way that allows us to strike thatmiddle 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 andinternally persuasive discourse.” CollegeEnglish 52, 847-69.

Duin, Ann Hill & Hansen, Craig (1994).“Reading and writing on computer networks as social construction andsocial interaction.”  In Cynthia L.Selfe & Susan Hilligoss (Eds.), Literacyand 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 socialinteraction in learning to write: Some effects of networktechnologies.”  Written Communication 8, 79-113.

Klobas, Jane E. & Haddow Gary (2000).“International computer-supported collaborative teamwork in businesseducation: 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 ofthe CLE's discussion feature (accessible through the coffee cup icon). Theyask specifically about courses FOR WHICH YOU ARE A STUDENT.

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

___ Yes (go to question 2)

___ No

___ Don't know

1b) (if "No" or "Don'tknow") Thank you for your help!

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

___ Yes (go to question 3)

___ No

___ Don't know

2b) (if "No" or "Don'tknow") Thank you for your help!

3) Please think of only ONE of your currentcourses for which your instructor offers the CLE discussion. Pleaseanswer all remaining questions based on your current experience with thatparticular 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 enrolledin your section? ____

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

____ 0 - 10%

____ 10 - 25%

____ 25 - 50%

____ 50 - 75%

____ over 75%

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

____ mandatory

____ optional

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

4a) In which of the following ways have you usedthe 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 beingdiscussed using the CLE discussion in your course? Please check all thatapply.

____ Questions about the course material

____ Technical issues or problems related to thecourse material

____ Work on independent or class projects

____ Application of course material to students'lives

____ Application of course materials to topicsnot covered in class (e.g., current events, additional case examples)

____ Controversial topics

____ Other - please explain:

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

____ It has helped me to learn the coursematerial.

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

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

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

____ It has helped me to ask questions I mightnot have asked otherwise.

____ It has been a waste of time.

____ It has been fun.

____ It has helped me in interpreting the coursematerial.

____ It has helped me to identify the majorpoints in the course.