Online discussion groups have become a resource for teachers seeking ongoing professional development. Despite their popularity, there has been little systematic investigation into the nature and quality of the dialogue that occurs within an unstructured virtual community to which participants voluntarily subscribe. In this study, we explored how…

A major task involved in the management, analysis, and integration of qualitative data is the development of a coding schema to facilitate the analytic process. Described in this paper is the evolution of a coding schema that was used in the analysis of qualitative data generated from online forums of middle-aged women with chronic conditions who…

Transcripts of electronic discussions have traditionally been examined via the use of conversational analysis techniques. Coding such transcripts provides rich data regarding the content and nature of the discussions that take place. However, understanding the content of a message is not limited to the actual message itself. An electronic message…