1. Determinants of Engagement in an Online Community of Inquiry
Jim Waters
College of Information Science and Technology
Drexel University
Philadelphia
Nov 9th 2006

2. Background Problem of maintaining student engagement.
Online learning creates separation
Alienation, lack of commitment and antisocial behavior ?
Community of Inquiry ?
A key problem facing educators is that of maintaining student engagement.
For online learning this problem can be more acute.
Physical separation from instructors and peers can lead to problems such as alienation, lack of commitment and antisocial behavior.
Nov 9th 2006

3. Pragmatism: Dewey and Addams
Problematic situation, scientific attitude and community as participatory democracy
Inquiry is controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation
There is a community engaged in inquiry. Inquiry is an open-ended process with positive feedback.
Dewey (1916,1933)
I took as my starting point the community of inquiry construct. Loosely speaking the Community of inquiry construct has its roots in pragmatism Dewey (1916). Inquiry is a collaborative activity building on multiple perspectives.
Nov 9th 2006

4. Community of Inquiry Garrison et al 2000 Nov 9th 2006
One model of the community of inquiry can be found in the work of Garrison, Anderson, Archer and colleagues in Athabasca. This model emphasizes the importance of three different presences required for a community of inquiry, namely social, cognitive and teaching. When all these elements are available a process of Critical Inquiry can take place.
Garrison et al 2000
Nov 9th 2006

5. Cycles of Inquiry Garrison et al 2000 Nov 9th 2006
Community members move between internal reflection and external debate. Iterative cyclical process.
Garrison et al 2000
Nov 9th 2006

6. Building on the Garrison et al Model
Content Analysis of online Discussion Board
Graduate Information Systems Students
Open-ended debate
Practical and Theoretical questions
Derived behaviors that incorporated different elements of the Garrison model
Nov 9th 2006

7. Student Roles Role Analogy Main Behavior Types Initiator Spider Social
Facilitator
Middleman
Social, Teaching
Contributor
Journeyman
Social, Cognitive
Knowledge-eliciter
Seeker
Vicarious-acknowledger
Me-too
Complicator
Reframer
Teaching, Cognitive
Closer
Synthesizer
Social, Teaching, Cognitive
Passive-Learner
Freeloader
Cognitive
The Initiator creates a social network by looking for points of connection between members and draws participants out. A Contributor adds to debate in terms of a contractual obligation. The Facilitator maintains impetus in debate by acknowledging useful contributions and drawing out debate. A Peer-Knowledge-Elicitor seeks information regularly. A Vicarious Acknowledger (“me-too”) demonstrates recognition that another contribution influenced their perspective. A Complicator forces the community to reflect on assumptions and suggests alternative interpretations, they point out inconsistencies in arguments and may reframe questions. A Closer attempts to pull together a final coherent answer by synthesizing difference perspectives. The Passive Learner makes no overt contribution..
Waters and Gasson 2005
Nov 9th 2006

8. Research Questions
Are there noticeable patterns of interactions between participant roles?
Do patterns of interaction change over time?
Does the online learning environment support critical inquiry ?
What interactions generate greatest student engagement
Nov 9th 2006

9. Study Post-Hoc analysis of online learning archive:
10 week graduate IS Management course at a US university
23 students, experienced professionals & managers.
3 - 4 open-ended questions posted to discussion board weekly:
1063 discussion-board messages
951 student responses (analyzed)
112 instructor postings (not analyzed).
Content analysis of postings and responses:
Each student contribution message assigned to single response type, reflecting dominant mode of behavior.
Nov 9th 2006

10. Raw results
25,937 individual reads of discussion board message (range 331 – 2179 reads per student)
951 student postings (range 1 – 154 per student)
Most active period weeks 1 & 2 (157 posts and 162 posts)
Then steady pattern of ~ posts per week.
Nov 9th 2006

11. Student behavior Contributor (61%) Facilitator (22%)
Fluid patterns of class behavior
Students adopt different behaviors from week to week
Popularity and volume were unrelated
Possible connection between facilitation and popularity/reference to poster.
Nov 9th 2006

12. Detailed Analysis Nine typical threads analysed
Three threads each for weeks 3, 6 and 9
The most productive debate produced 30 messages with a maximum thread depth of 7.
The least productive produced 14 messages with a thread depth of 2.
The mean number of messages on a discussion was 22
Four discussions had a thread depth of greater than 3.
Pattern of responses analysed
Nov 9th 2006

13. Are there noticeable patterns of interactions between participant roles?
From To
Frequency
Percentage
Acknowledger
Contributor 3
1.7%
Eliciter 4
2.3%
Complicator
Facilitator
Faculty
Closer 6
3.4% 7
4.0% 16
9.2% 18
10.3%
106
60.9%
TOTAL
174
100.0%
The role was derived based solely on the content of the message not on its position in the thread or what preceded or followed it. So when I say facilitation it miter be better to call it attempted facilitation as like oysters not all of them work.
Nov 9th 2006

14. Ratio of receive to send Contributor = 27/106 = 0.25
Senders
Acknowledger 3
1.7%
Eliciter 4
2.3%
Closer 6
3.4%
Complicator 17
9.8%
Facilitator 38
21.8%
Contributor
106
60.9%
Faculty
Total
174
100%
Receivers
Acknowledger
0.0%
Eliciter
Closer
Complicator
Facilitator 25
14.4%
Contributor 27
15.5%
Faculty
122
70.1%
If we look at the senders of messages we see as expected that most messages are of the contractual obligation types, but there is a small but healthy number of facilitator type messages and a notable number of complicator messages. In terms of receivers the Instructor is the biggest recipient. When we consider response rate as a percentage of send rate we see that although the contributor message type is very common it is far less likely to generate a response than the facilitator message. The lack of response to complicator messages is an artifact that I want to examine more closely.
Ratio of receive to send
Contributor = 27/106 = 0.25
Facilitator = 25/38 = 0.65
Complicator = 0/17 = 0.00
Nov 9th 2006

15. Do patterns of interaction change over time?
Week 3 (n = 63)
Week 6 (n=51)
There are some dyads that are consistent across time. however the patterns do change from week to week. The complicator role is more active in week 9. Messages in later weeks are more likely to be responses to peer messages rather than responses to the faculty member’s posts. The raw number of posts per week does not decline significantly over time.
Week 9 (n = 60)
Nov 9th 2006

16. Does the online learning environment support critical inquiry ?
Muukkonen et al 1999
Other cyclical models of inquiry and knowledge building. Muukkonen and Stahl
Stahl 2006
Nov 9th 2006

17. Does the online learning environment support critical inquiry ?
Few threads reached a definitive conclusion
Closer synthesizes and ends debate
Closer often ignored
Elements found
Information Gathering
Synthesis
Concrete experience
Reflective observation.
Critical evaluation
Deepening questions
Generating subordinate questions
Refining given knowledge
Generating hypotheses
Open-ended debate ?
Not problem centered ?
Nov 9th 2006

18. What interactions generate greatest student engagement
Analysis of all 951 student messages
Analysis of Read frequency for different message types
Knowledge-elicitation messages (asking questions) generated significantly more (24) reads pre message than any other type of message.
Average reads per message for all messages is 16.78
Some participants messages are read more frequently than others
So I went back to the whole body of messages and looked at the extent to which different message types were attended to.
Nov 9th 2006

19. Who are the most attended to posters ?
Participant 11 is read almost twice as frequently as participant 14, 1.79 times ore often to be precise. The average reads per message for all participants is 16 reads per message
Nov 9th 2006

20. Why are some posters more engaging ?
Does frequency of posting messages affect popularity?
Does length of message affect frequency of reads?
Does position of messages affect frequency of reads ?
Does type of “participant” affect frequency of reads ?
Nov 9th 2006

21. Is frequency of posting related to popularity?
Correlation between number of messages and total reads of a persons messages is 0.97,
Weak correlation between frequency of posting and reads/message.
Most frequent poster posted 136 messages which attracted an average of reads per message.
The average messages per person was 37
Top three most attended to participants posted an above average number but subject 20 did not.
Two of the least attended to participants posted well above average numbers of messages.
Nov 9th 2006

22. Does length of message relate to read frequency
Correlation between length of post and reads for that post = 0.011
Grouping messages into very short (< 101 words), Short (101—200 words), medium (210—300 words) and long (>301 words)
One-Way ANOVA on frequency of reads gives an f value of .373 and a significance level of .773, no apparent significant effect
Nov 9th 2006

23. Does position of message affect frequency of reads
Messages posted in the first 2 days of a thread are read significantly more frequently (f=36.339, p= 0.000) than later messages.
Messages posted after the third day are read by less than 50% of participants.
If a message is one of the first 10 posted it is much more likely to be read than later messages (f=22.564, p = 0.000).
However only two of the most attended to participants are “early” posters.
Nov 9th 2006

24. Does type of participant affect frequency of reads
The most attended to participants posted more facilitation messages (39% of messages posted)
The least attended to participants typically posted far fewer facilitation messages. (23% of messages posted).
Nov 9th 2006

25. Conclusions Peer Facilitation does work
Students quickly identify valuable contributors
Early stages crucial
Changing Contributor to Facilitator
Identification of thought leaders
Asking questions gets responses
Fluid patterns of behavior within the community
Volume is not the same as quality
Nov 9th 2006

26. Limitations Future Work Small, exploratory study Initial framework
Open to debate
Future Work
Influence of prior online learning-experience on patterns of behavior
Larger sample size
Deeper analysis of content
Explore vicarious learning contributions more fully
Explore why patterns change
Compare ill-defined vs. well-bounded questions.
Nov 9th 2006

27. Questions?
Nov 9th 2006