16. ICT in Education and Training
Paper
What Drives You to be Active in MOOC Discussion Forums? The Relationship Between Motivation, Social Interaction, and Cognitive Engagement
Xiaomei Wei1, Nadira Saab1, Wilfried Admiraal2
1Leiden University, Netherlands, The; 2Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Presenting Author: Wei, Xiaomei
1. Background /problem statement
MOOC discussion forums create a collaborative community where knowledge construction and knowledge sharing can occur. In discussion forums, being engaged in the textual dialogue is essential for MOOC learners to better knowledge and skills acquisition. A growing body of studies probs learner engagement by using learning analytics to extract the trace data in discussion forums. Some studies have examined the total number of forum views and posts (e.g., Khalil & Ebner, 2017; Sunar et al., 2020) as the learning engagement indices in discussion forums. The quantified learning engagement revealed insightful information on learners’ behavioral participation in discussion forums. However, to gain insight into how knowledge construction takes place, it is not enough if we solely pay attention to how frequently learners engage in discussion forums. For this aim, it is necessary to examine learners’ cognitive engagement in dialogues in discussion forums from a content-wise perspective.
Previous studies confirmed that motivation was a strong factor that influenced learners’ learning in MOOCs (Badali et al., 2022). The participation of both non-completers and completers implies that MOOC learners with different motivations for attending a course might vary in investing effort in their learning, and individual motivation might lead to pursuing different attainments. Motivation is a vital factor that should be considered when exploring the mechanism of individual effort investment in discussion forums. Furthermore, in discussion forums, the development of dialogues is an ongoing collaborative work among fellow learners. Social interaction in discussion forums builds up the processes of collaborative learning and position individual in networks of meaning-making and knowledge-building (Dowell et al., 2015). Considering the individual role in social interaction, it might be helpful to understand the mechanism of knowledge construction and sharing. Therefore, this study connects motivation and social interaction to cognitive engagement would contribute to the knowledge of what rationales drive individuals to be engaged or disengaged in MOOC discussion forums.
2. Theoretical framework
1. Chi and Wylie (2014) developed the interactive, constructive, active, and passive (ICAP) framework, for evaluating the modes of cognitive engagement based on contributions within online learning communities, which reflects knowledge construction levels in learning processes.
2. Motivation is defined as the impetus to activate a person toward performing a behavior or actions (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation indicate that individuals are mobilized to act by distinct motivational orientations ranging from internalization to behavioral regulation (Deci & Ryan, 1985a). Individuals who have shared motivation orientation can be characterized into different learner profiles of motivation namely autonomous, controlled, and combined motivation (Ratelle et al., 2007). Motivation is a positive factor that drives learners to be engaged in discussion forums. For example, Tang et al. (2018) discovered that learners with autonomous motivation performed well than others in their longitudinal forum engagement.
3. Social networking analysis offers a perspective to identify social interaction patterns (i.e., centrality, and prestige) based on learners’ position (Wasserman & Faust, 1994) in the knowledge network, which manifests the degree of individual contribution to the cognitive discourse in discussion forums. Positive social interaction can moderate learners’ cognitive engagement in discussion forums (e.g., Galikyan et al., 2021).
3. Research questions
Aiming at acquiring precise knowledge, research questions were proposed to be addressed as follows:
RQ1: What modes of cognitive engagement characterize the co-construction of knowledge in MOOC discussion forums?
RQ2: How are motivation and social interaction related to different modes of cognitive engagement in MOOC discussion forums?
RQ3: How does social interaction influence the relationships between motivation and different modes of cognitive engagement in MOOC discussion forums?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used1. Data
This study will be conducted on the data from the Circular Economy: An Introduction offered by a Dutch research university on the platform of edX. The data in this study came from the three runs of this course in 2021. The MOOC data composes of demographic information (e.g., gender, age), pre-survey, log events, discussion forum logs, etc. In total, there were 8299 learners enrolled in the course, and 981 learners passed the course. There were 2432 learners who gave their responses to the pre-test survey, and 723 of these learners posted in the discussion forums. There were 17540 comments posted to 834 forum comment threads, from 2207 learners.
2. Measuring instruments
2.1. Cognitive engagement
The content of the discussion forums will be analyzed utilizing the coding instrument developed by Wang et al. (2015). All the posts in the discussion forums will be coded and categorized into passive, active, constructive, and interactive to manifest the modes of cognitive engagement.
2.2. Motivation
The qualitative data on motivation was gathered from the open questions in the pre-survey. A motivation coding scheme developed by (Wei et al., 2023) will be utilized to cluster learners into different types of motivation groups: autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and combined motivation.
2.3. Social interaction
Social interaction will be measured by social network measures namely centrality and prestige (Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Based on learners’ contributions to the cognitive discourse in the discussion forums, social interaction aims to locate learners in the knowledge-sharing network.
3. Data analysis
To answer RQ1, a content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) will be adopted to distinguish the modes of cognitive engagement using the coding instrument developed by Wang et al. (2015). Descriptive statistics will be used for demonstrating the cognitive engagement modes.
To answer RQ2, firstly, a content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) will be employed to identify the types of motivation in terms of autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and combined motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985b). Second, a social network analysis (Wasserman & Faust, 1994) will be carried out to identify social interaction patterns among learners. Third, a multiple regression analysis will be adopted with SPSS 27.0 to examine the effects of motivation and social interaction on cognitive engagement.
To answer RQ3, a moderating analysis (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) will be conducted with PROCESS v3.5 to examine the effect of social interaction on the relationship between motivation and cognitive engagement.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsExpected outcomes:
1. The content analysis of the task-related messages in discussion forums will identify the modes of cognitive engagement (i.e., interactive, constructive, active, and passive). The descriptive statistics will display the results in total (7 weeks) and the distribution of weekly results.
2. Learners who attended this MOOC for various reasons will be categorized, for instance, personal interest, earning credits, teacher’s requirements, to supplement knowledge, personal interest & earning credits, etc. Three motivational profiles for participation in MOOCs will be identified, namely autonomous motivation, controlled motivation, and combined motivation. Learners’ motivation might be significantly and positively related to cognitive engagement, and learners with autonomous motivation might be more positively engaged in the discussion forums than other counterparts. Concerning social interaction, based on learners’ contributions to the dialogs, their social interaction patterns (i.e., centrality, and prestige) will be visualized in the social network. Social interaction might positively influence learners to be engaged in discussion forums, and learners located in the central positions (i.e., centrality) of the social network might be more positively engaged in discussion forums.
3. The moderating roles of centrality and prestige in the relationship between motivation and cognitive engagement will be examined. The centrality and prestige might be significant moderators of the relationship between motivation and cognitive engagement. The moderating effects of centrality and prestige on different modes of cognitive engagement will be further identified.
4. Based on the main findings of this study, we will offer theoretical implications to the literature and practical implications for MOOC curriculum designers and instructors.
ReferencesBadali, M., Hatami, J., Banihashem, S. K., Rahimi, E., Noroozi, O., & Eslami, Z. (2022). The role of motivation in MOOCs’ retention rates: a systematic literature review. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 17(1), 1-20.
Chi, M. T., & Wylie, R. (2014). The ICAP framework: Linking cognitive engagement to active learning outcomes. Educational psychologist, 49(4), 219-243.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985a). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behaviour. New York: Plenum Publishing Co.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985b). Motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum Publishing Co.
Galikyan, I., Admiraal, W., & Kester, L. (2021). MOOC discussion forums: The interplay of the cognitive and the social. Computers & Education, 165, 104133.
Hsieh, H.-F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative health research, 15(9), 1277-1288.
Khalil, M., & Ebner, M. (2017). Clustering patterns of engagement in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): the use of learning analytics to reveal student categories. Journal of computing in higher education, 29(1), 114-132.
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior research methods, 40(3), 879-891.
Ratelle, C. F., Guay, F., Vallerand, R. J., Larose, S., & Senécal, C. (2007). Autonomous, controlled, and amotivated types of academic motivation: A person-oriented analysis. Journal of educational psychology, 99(4), 734-746.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 54-67.
Sunar, A. S., Abbasi, R. A., Davis, H. C., White, S., & Aljohani, N. R. (2020). Modelling MOOC learners' social behaviours. Computers in Human Behavior, 107, 105835.
Tang, H., Xing, W., & Pei, B. (2018). Exploring the temporal dimension of forum participation in MOOCs. Distance Education, 39(3), 353-372.
Wang, X., Yang, D., Wen, M., Koedinger, K., & Rosé, C. P. (2015, June). Investigating How Student's Cognitive Behavior in MOOC Discussion Forums Affect Learning Gains. In International Educational Data Mining Society. Madrid, Spain.
Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wei, X., Saab, N., & Admiraal, W. (2023). Do learners share the same perceived learning outcomes in MOOCs? Identifying the role of motivation, perceived learning support, learning engagement, and self-regulated learning strategies. The Internet and Higher Education, 56, 100880.
16. ICT in Education and Training
Paper
Student Collaboration in a Virtual World: By-passing the Intimacy of Video-Based Interactions
Tonje Hilde Giaever1, Bård Ketil Engen1, Cleary Yvonne2, Slattery Darina2
1Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway; 2University of Limerick, Ireland
Presenting Author: Giaever, Tonje Hilde;
Engen, Bård Ketil
There has been a growing interest and awareness in using online technologies to support teaching and learning activities within higher education. While the Covid 19 pandemic, and the subsequent shut down of society, offers one explanation for this growing interest among educators, this increasing interest could also be an outcome of the proliferation of education technologies now available. Online video conference systems have become popular tools for organising both online synchronous teaching as well as hybrid teaching activities. Video conference systems designed for education share some common features and prerequisites for mediating interactions between participants—besides the webcam and microphone, these systems can offer built in support for text chat, whiteboards, and breakout rooms and include awareness and turn-taking functions such as raised hands, emojis, polls, etc. Nevertheless, it is the video and sound that offers the main media for interactions.
Unlike traditional physical teaching on campus, interactions in a video-based teaching situation are characterised by being two-dimensional (2D). Both teachers and students are represented flat on a computer screen where everyone appears as equal regardless of their role. In this context, students do not have options to choose seats in the back but are always placed in the “front row”. On the one hand, it could be argued that this situation creates a space where students are more active and engaged in classroom activities; on the other hand, one could question whether this way of organising teaching puts more focus on personal attributes and creating asymmetrical relations among the participants.
As an alternative to video conference systems, there has been some interest among educators in using 3D-based Multiuser Virtual Environments (MUVE) to facilitate online synchronous teaching activities. In a MUVE, all participants are represented by avatars that they can customize according to their preferences (e.g. gender, clothing, skin colour, hair, age, etc.). MUVEs in education have been used across a variety of subjects and contexts (see for example, Barab et al., 2005; Englund, 2017; Pasfield-Neofitou et al., 2015; Wang & Burton, 2013). In teacher education, MUVE has been used to facilitate role-play instructions (Vasileiou & Paraskeva, 2010), as well as problem-based learning (Mørch et al., 2016).
This paper examines the potential benefits of using a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) for student collaboration. The study was conducted in two courses: a 15-credit bachelor course in Distributed Collaborative Learning in teacher education at Oslo Metropolitan University and a 3-credit MA course in Learning and Collaboration Technologies at the University of Limerick, both using Open Simulator. For a period of three weeks, Irish and Norwegian students collaborated on a project within the MUVE. The project started with an introductory lecture on Open Simulator and ended with a student presentation of each group’s work. Both courses were entirely online, and the student groups were already familiar with video-based online courses but had little to no experience of MUVE-based teaching and learning environments.
The purpose of this paper is to explore if a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) enhances or diminishes nonverbal communication opportunities compared to video-based (non-avatar) interactions. Additionally, we will examine if being represented as an avatar in a MUVE shifts the focus away from personal characteristics and increases focus on the subject matter during communication among students.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe contextual framework for this study is a 3D-based virtual campus, where students and teachers were represented as avatars interacting with each other. In this case study, the virtual environment was designed like a university campus.
The methodologies employed in this study involve a qualitative research analysis using virtual ethnography (Hetland & Mørch, 2016; Hine, 2015) of student activities taking place in a virtual world. All sessions were observed and recorded at a distance in the virtual world using screen capture software. The observations were followed up using qualitative interviews with selected students and evaluating excerpts from blogs. The interviews focused on their experiences of interaction in the virtual environment both as individuals and as part of a group. Students were also involved as co-interpreters of selected parts of the recordings. In our selection for data sample, we concentrated on scenarios where students worked in groups to share ideas and organise their work. These tasks included information sharing and negotiations for establishing shared understandings of the tasks.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsPreliminary findings suggest that a shared virtual environment and avatar representations of teachers and students results in a decreased focus on individual attributes and an increased focus on the subject matter of study. Results from this study could be of interest to other universities engaged in developing and facilitating online synchronous teaching and student collaboration. Indeed, the findings may be of wider interest to the many organizations where virtual collaboration is now commonplace.
ReferencesBarab, S., Thomas, M., Dodge, T., Carteaux, R. & Tuzun, H. (2005). Making learning fun: Quest Atlantis, a game without guns. Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(1), 86-107. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02504859
Englund, C. (2017). Exploring approaches to teaching in three-dimensional virtual worlds. International Journal of Information and Learning Technology, 34, 140-151. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJILT-12-2016-0058
Hetland, P. & Mørch, A. I. (2016). Ethnography for Investigating the Internet. Seminar.Net, 12(1). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.7577/seminar.2335
Hine, C. (2015). Ethnography for the Internet: Embedded, Embodied and Everyday. London: Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474218900
Mørch, A. I., Mifsud, L. & Engen, B. K. (2016). Problem-Based Learning in Synchronous Networked Environments: Comparing Adobe Connect and Second Life. Seminar. net,
Pasfield-Neofitou, S., Huang, H. & Grant, S. (2015). Lost in second life: virtual embodiment and language learning via multimodal communication. Educational Technology Research and Development, 63. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-015-9384-7
Vasileiou, V. & Paraskeva, F. (2010). Teaching Role-Playing Instruction in Second Life: An Exploratory Study. Journal of Information, Information Technology, and Organizations, 5. https://doi.org/10.28945/1181
Wang, F. & Burton, J. (2013). Second Life in education: A review of publications from its launch to 2011. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2012.01334.x
16. ICT in Education and Training
Paper
Student Exchange Without Travelling
Ann-Britt Enochsson, Annica Ådefors
Karlstad University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Enochsson, Ann-Britt
At the beginning of 2020, we experienced that a lot of activities, that we normally do, had to be put on paus due to the pandemic. One of these activities was international exchange programs in higher education. One way to continue working with international exchange could be to work more with international exchange online, which sometimes is called technology-supported internationalization or Internationalization-at-home – IaH (Mittelmeier et l., 2021). In March 2021, we launched an exchange program for vocational student teachers in Norway, Germany, Sweden, and Turkey, supported by the exchange program ERASMUS. The overarching aim was to provide the preservice teachers with insights in vocational training in other countries and thereby in developing and strengthening their intercultural skills as well as English and digital skills
Students in all four countries studied one or several of three online MOOCs developed within the project. The themes of the MOOCs were 1) Democracy and citizenship, 2) Sustainable development, and 3) values. A fourth course was about how to create digital stories through short videos. After working with the MOOCs locally, the students met in international colloquia collaboratively creating digital storytelling, i.e. short videos, on the themes. The way of working also meant that the students needed to collaborate online and to practice their English throughout digital storytelling production.
In the project, 142 students from our own university in Sweden participated together with student teachers from Norway, Germany, and Turkey. About ten teacher educators from the four countries have had the opportunity to participate in four MOOCs through a common learning platform. Three MOOCs focused on the three themes mentioned above, and the fourth MOOC covered how to create digital storytelling.
The study has its base in a sociocultural tradition, which emphasizes learning through interaction with the support of mediating tools (Ivarsson et al., 2009). Language is described as the most important tool for communication and thinking and therefore also an important tool for learning (Säljö, 2014). In a multimodal setting like the online MOOCs where the preservice teachers were expected to produce videos in collaboration with others, language fulfils a bridging and important function (Ivarsson et al., 2009). In this context, the language was English which was not any student’s mother tongue.
The aim of this study is to contribute knowledge in the field of international exchange between vocational preservice teachers in times when travelling is restricted.
The research questions are as follows:
- How do the preservice teachers experience the participation in an international exchange through online technology?
- What are the advantages, disadvantages and challenges working this way according to the Swedish preservice teachers and their teacher educators?
Interesting in this specific context has been how the student have used, experienced and communicated through the available technological resources, and how they relate to the development project’s overarching aim (to develop intercultural, digital and English competence).
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study is a case study inspired by action research, focusing on the students that volunteered in the international seminars. They were about 50 students in three groups, and there were also a few individual presentations internationally. Data derive from different sources. Project documents and MOOCs will be analysed as well as written summaries from the work in the other countries in the project. These data from the overall project and serve as a basis for the analyses of the preservice teachers’ experiences. The Swedish preservice teachers and their two teacher educators will be interviewed to get data to better understand their experiences and how the resources could be used. Included in data are also the digital storytelling by the interviewed preservice teachers.
The interviews with the preservice teachers will be conducted as semi-structured interviews (Kvale & Brinkman, 2008) through an online video tool. The vocational teacher program is run online in combination with three meetings per semester on campus, which means that some of the preservice teachers live quite far from the university. The interview questions concerned their experiences from the project with focus on interculture, technology and language, how they think they can use these experiences in their future profession with their future upper-secondary vocational pupils, and how the project could be developed further within teacher education.
Data will be analysed through a text analysis in terms of an expanded text concept (Fejes & Thornberg, 2015). The results are reported and discussed with a focus on the students’ and their teacher educators' experiences of the exchange project by using the digital tools.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe project is still in its infancy, and interviews will be carried out during the next months. Because of this there are still no results, but we believe that our study can contribute knowledge to the field of internationalization of vocational teacher education.
ReferencesFejes, A. & Thornberg, R. (Eds.) (2015). Handbok i kvalitativ analys [Handbook in qualitative analysis]. (2 ed.) Liber.
Ivarsson, J., Linderoth, J. & Säljö, R. (2009). Representations in practices: A sociocultural approach to multimodality in reasoning. In C. Jewitt (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of multimodal analysis (pp. 201-212). Routledge. https://gup.ub.gu.se/file/206812
Kvale, S. Brinkmann, S (2014). InterViews: Learning the Craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing (3 ed.). Sage.
Mittelmeier, J., Rienties, B., Gunter, A. & Raghuram, P. (2021). Conceptualizing internationalization at a distance: A “Third Category” of university internationalization. Journal of Studies in International Education, 25(3), 266–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315320906176
Moura E. O. de, Bispo M. de S. (2020) Sociomateriality: Theories, methodology, and practice. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 37(3), 350–365. https://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1548
Säljö, R. (2014). Lärande i praktiken: Ett sociokulturellt perspektiv [Learning in practice: A socio-cultural perspective]. (3. ed.) Studentlitteratur.
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