Effects of a social tutor on participation, sense of community and learning in online university courses

Abstract

Recently, Computer Supported Collaborative Learning researchers have become interested in the notion of scripting and assigning roles to students enrolled in online courses, in order to increase their engagement in collaborative activities. This study aimed to investigate whether assigning a role called social tutor to a student enrolled in an online university course can promote 1) peers’ participation in online discussions, 2) the development of a Sense of Community (SC), consisting of three factors: membership, fulfilment of needs and goal achievement and mutual influence of the individual/group, and 3) effective learning. The participants were 53 undergraduate students who enrolled in an online course, and were divided into two groups: 1) a group of 29 students with a social tutor and 2) a group of 24 students with no social tutor. The results indicate that students’ participation as well as the membership factor of SC improved only in the group that the social tutor was present. In contrast, the scores on the other two SC factors improved regardless of the presence of a social tutor. Moreover, the results show no difference between these two groups in terms of students’ grades in the final examination. The importance of a social tutor in the design of effective online university courses is discussed.

Promoting Students’ Collective Cognitive Responsibility through Concurrent, Embedded and Transformative Assessment in Blended Higher Education Courses

“…Likewise, using a portfolio at the end of each module could support students in changing their strategy and monitoring this evolution. It is possible that using a tool like the portfolio can make explicit to the students the collaborative culture of work in the KBC and to check the sense of community among participants (Balboni et al, 2018 ; Cacciamani et al, 2019 ; Perrucci et al, 2012 ). It could be important to verify if the community dimension favouring collaboration has really become part of the member’s experience.…”

The role of the instructor and the tutor in the discoursive interaction in a blended university course: A case analysis

“…Future studies, then, can extend this study to other online courses in order to be able to generalize the results. Moreover, it would be helpful to employ the conversational functions to examine the "emerging roles" (Strijbos & Weinberger, 2010) that students can assume during an online course, or "scripted roles" attributed explicitly by the instructor to the students (Cacciamani, Cesareni, Perrucci, Balboni, & Khanlari, 2019) in order to understand how the instructor and the tutor interact with them. In this way, conversation functions analysis applied to online interactions can represent a promising opportunity to better understand the knowledge building discourse.…”

The Shifts to Online Learning: Think Piece: Assumptions, Implications and Possibilities for Quality Education in Teacher Education

“…Many educators believe the socio-constructivist viewpoint that CHAT draws from (Engeström, 2001) can usefully contribute to student-centred learning. This implies to support effective learning and promote student satisfaction in online courses, a community participating in online mediation activities must be developed (Cacciamani et al, 2019). Therefore, conceptualising the activities relating to online mediation in these two institutions can help the institutions to understand their activities as they unfold, in particular, the underlying systemic tensions and contradictions (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006) that give rise to the challenges encountered by both facilitators and students in the online mediation processes.…”