Examining Patterns of Participation and Meaning Making in Student Blogs: A Case Study in Higher Education

Sharma, Priya; Tietjen, Phil

doi:10.1080/08923647.2016.1119605

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…da Silva et al () used SNA to assess the participation of members of monitors of telecentres in a digital inclusion context. Similar uses of SNA could be observed in the studies of Dorner () and Sharma and Tietjen (). The former identified patterns of relationships among participants in a learning network and quantified interaction patterns, whereas the latter examined and mapped interactions among participants in two sections of a specific course.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Measuring Participation in Distance Education Online Discussion Forums Using Social Network Analysis

Silva

Barbosa

Gomes

2018

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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Distance Education professionals have been constantly coming up with methods and techniques to increase student participation in an environment where learning happens continuously and asynchronously. An online discussion forum (ODF) is one of these mechanisms, but it will only be successful if students are willing to participate. Stimulating students is a challenge many institutions currently face. The objective of this study was to analyze the social interaction among participants in ODFs using Social Network Analysis. Knowing the characteristics of these networks and its participants is important to design actions to improve the use of ODFs. As a case study, data were collected from ODF logs of the majors in Business Administration and Accounting in a Brazilian private university. This study found out that these interaction networks are sparse, which shows that students could be more engaged in interacting and collaborating with others. Students, in general, tend to interact more in the first semester and interaction diminishes as time passes. The number of active ODF participants has been around 45–50%, which shows that students currently do not participate very often in ODFs. Their main incentive seems to exist when they are graded. Popular ODFs were also analyzed.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Measuring Participation in Distance Education Online Discussion Forums Using Social Network Analysis

Silva

Barbosa

Gomes

2018

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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“…Studies on blogs show consistently positive findings for many of the behavioral and emotional engagement indicators. For example, students reported that blogs promoted interaction with others, through greater communication and information sharing with peers (Chu, Chan, & Tiwari, 2012;Ivala & Gachago, 2012;Mansouri & Piki, 2016), and analyses of blog posts show evidence of students elaborating on one another's ideas and sharing experiences and conceptions of course content (Sharma & Tietjen, 2016). Blogs also contribute to emotional engagement by providing students with opportunities to express their feelings about learning and by encouraging positive attitudes about learning (Dos & Demir, 2013;Chu et al, 2012;Yang & Chang, 2012).…”

Section: Blogsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature on blogs and cognitive engagement is less consistent. Some studies suggest that blogs may help students engage in active learning, problem-solving, and reflection (Chawinga, 2017;Chu et al, 2012;Ivala & Gachago, 2012;Mansouri & Piki, 2016), while other studies suggest that students' blog posts show very little evidence of higher-order thinking (Dos & Demir, 2013;Sharma & Tietjen, 2016). The inconsistency in findings may be due to the wording of blog instructions.…”

Section: Blogsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computer-based technology and student engagement: a critical review of the literature

Schindler

Burkholder

Morad

et al. 2017

Int J Educ Technol High Educ

261

167

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Computer-based technology has infiltrated many aspects of life and industry, yet there is little understanding of how it can be used to promote student engagement, a concept receiving strong attention in higher education due to its association with a number of positive academic outcomes. The purpose of this article is to present a critical review of the literature from the past 5 years related to how web-conferencing software, blogs, wikis, social networking sites (Facebook and Twitter), and digital games influence student engagement. We prefaced the findings with a substantive overview of student engagement definitions and indicators, which revealed three types of engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive) that informed how we classified articles. Our findings suggest that digital games provide the most far-reaching influence across different types of student engagement, followed by web-conferencing and Facebook. Findings regarding wikis, blogs, and Twitter are less conclusive and significantly limited in number of studies conducted within the past 5 years. Overall, the findings provide preliminary support that computer-based technology influences student engagement, however, additional research is needed to confirm and build on these findings. We conclude the article by providing a list of recommendations for practice, with the intent of increasing understanding of how computer-based technology may be purposefully implemented to achieve the greatest gains in student engagement. Â© 2017, The Author(s)

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“…For example, it is often difficult to accurately hear all students in video recordings of classrooms and identify to whom particular utterances are being directed. More recent research has largely looked to bypass these challenges by focusing on the communications of individuals in online or digital spaces (Chai & Tan, 2009; de Laat, Lally, Lipponen, & Simons, 2007a; Oshima, Oshima, & Matsuzawa, 2012; Sharma & Tietjen, 2016; Shea et al, 2009; Thorpe, McCormick, Kubiak, & Carmichael, 2007). These studies consider discourse in digital forums, online learning environments, blogs, social networking sites, instant messaging, and other forms of e-communication where the discourse is discrete and written.…”

Section: Research On Discourse Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Studying Discourse as Social Interaction: The Potential of Social Network Analysis for Discourse Studies

Wagner

González‐Howard

2018

Educational Researcher

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Education researchers have extensively studied classroom discourse as a way to understand classroom structures and learning. This article proposes the use of social network analysis (SNA) as a method for discourse studies in education. SNA enables us to learn about the connections between persons and the patterns of relations within groups. This presents a novel approach to the study of discourse that may more accurately reflect current understandings of discourse as a social phenomenon. This article explains the theoretical links between SNA and the concept of discourse in education and then considers how SNA can be used to examine classroom discourse. A brief overview of promising methods is presented to provide examples of how SNA can be applied to discourse data. This article argues that continued exploration and applications of SNA could yield more complex understandings of the role of discourse in learning opportunities and outcomes.

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Examining Patterns of Participation and Meaning Making in Student Blogs: A Case Study in Higher Education

Cited by 17 publications

References 25 publications

Measuring Participation in Distance Education Online Discussion Forums Using Social Network Analysis

Measuring Participation in Distance Education Online Discussion Forums Using Social Network Analysis

Computer-based technology and student engagement: a critical review of the literature

Studying Discourse as Social Interaction: The Potential of Social Network Analysis for Discourse Studies

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