Each year students spend thousands of hours participating in discussion forums. Yet there has not been sufficient scholarship on the observable effects of discussion forums on learning outcomes, and there is not a clear understanding of the role discussion forums play in transmitting knowledge of course concepts to students. This study…

To learn more about how learning takes place online, this study outlines and analyzes the micro-level features of the online class discussions of students in a college course. A positive relationship between online participation and student performance was found, in which higher-graded students submitted more messages and engaged in more…

This case study focused on whether women, enrolled in a graduate course, would engage in online debate, and if so, whether their postings would contain traditional elements of argumentation (i.e., argue, elaborate, critique). Content analyses for two debates were performed. For the most part, the overarching messages in both debates were…

Online delivery of university-level courses has grown exponentially in the last decade and is increasingly being recognised as a viable and effective alternative to face-to-face classroom teaching. Many scholars have already written about the benefits and best practices of online teaching in general. However, not many studies have paid specific…