An Examination of Students' Attitude and Effects of Role Assignment in Asynchronous Online Discussions
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This study provides guidelines in designing online discussion. It examined the effect of role assignment in text-based asynchronous online discussion on knowledge construction, interaction, quality of interaction, and quantity of discussion in two treatment groups. Two online discussion groups introduced the roles in their activity; one presented the roles in an abstract description and the other one presented the roles in concrete instructions with examples. The study was part of an online course project for 134 undergraduate students. While other studies focused on the function and the effect of the role assignments, this study was interested on students’ attitude toward there roles, the instructions presented these roles, and their experience of online discussion with the use of the assigned roles. \nThere were two research questions were discussed in the study. MANOVA analysis was carried out to investigate the effect of four assigned roles on knowledge construction, interaction, quality of interaction, and quantity of discussion in two conditions. The finding reported a high level of knowledge construction on students’ synthesis posts. It also showed a high level of quality of interaction of the students’ posts during the discussion. The results showed no differences in the dependent variables in the two conditions. However, there was a variation in the quality of interaction between the roles in each group. In general, source searcher and summarizer reported the highest level of knowledge construction. In addition, students’ attitude survey showed positive attitude toward the roles used in the study and that was reflected on the high level of the quality of their posts. \nThe study recommended future research to investigate the effect of more roles. It is also recommended to find the relationship between the group size and knowledge construction as well as investigate students’ satisfaction with the roles they were assigned.
Author: Amal Alzahrani
Language: English
Topic: Online and Blended Learning
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2187798045