Keeping Online Asynchronous Discussions on Topic

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to identify various techniques recommended and used by online instructors for keeping online learners on topic during asynchronous discussion and to identify what factors affected selection. A thirty-seven item online questionnaire was developed and completed by 135 online instructors subscribing to an international distance education listserv. Thirteen techniques for keeping online asynchronous learners on topic were rated using a sixpoint Likert scale. The results of the study showed that online instructors rated the following as the top four techniques for keeping asynchronous online discussion on topic: 1) Carefully design questions that specifically elicit on-topic discussion, 2) provide guidelines to help online learners prepare on-topic responses, 3) reword the original question when responses are going in the wrong direction and 4) provide discussion summary on a regular basis. Experience, training and differences between what respondents recommended and used to keep online asynchronous discussion on topic produced statistically significant results at the 0.05 level.

Asynchronous Discussion Groups in Teacher Training Classes: Perceptions of Native and Non-Native Students

“…This would remove the burden of imposing a topic on the other group members, who may not be interested in a topic chosen by their classmate and also make the discussion less "unfocused" and "more structure[d]". Thus, even though it had been assumed that allowing students to select appropriate course-related discussion topics on their own would be perceived as a benefit to the assignment in allowing students to take on more responsibility for their own learning and increase motivation [32], the students in the two courses would have preferred more topic guidance, an observation also made by Beaudin [59]. Perhaps the newness of electronic postings to many students, as well as some students' comparison of the format in the present study to a teacher-initiated discussion format in the previous semester when BlackBoard was introduced at the university, may explain the students' preferences (see Table 6) [cf.…”

“…Both native and non-native students responded: "What is reflective," "[What is the] meaning of 'critical,'" and suggested that "more clarity on reflective comments" was needed. Thus, although students were given weekly feedback by the instructor, who would comment in writing on this aspect of the students' postings, students may have benefited from greater teacher presence during their group interactions [53] and from modeling sample postings, which could have aided them in including critical commentary in their postings [59].…”

Virtual Cultural Communication: Establishing Dialogues Between China and Poland

“…Much has been written on the establishment and creation of online courses (cf. Beaudin 1999, Kearsley 2002, Palloff and Prat 2001 and this paper will not explore in detail the theoretical frameworks of online learning. It is worth noting that the virtual cultural exchange programme created for this project is based on methodology which dates to the earlier phases of online communication in the early 2000s (see Chia, Poe, and Yang 2011 for a discussion on the background of the Global Understanding methodology).…”

Essential Elements in Designing Online Discussions to Promote Cognitive Presence — A Practical Experience

“…A literature review was conducted to identify problems that hinder student learning in online discussions. Frequently cited problems included non-participation [6,35,36], postings that did not reflect critical thinking skills [6,25,37], limited interactions among participants [30] and topic digression to unfocused talks [6,38]. These problems severely encumbered cognitive presence in online discussions.…”

“…As a result, online discussions tended to lose their original focus and digressed to irrelevant talks. Once discussions wandered off track, it would take a long time for the instructor to get discussions under control [38].…”