Networked and digital technologies are increasingly being used for learning in formal and informal contexts, and participant engagement occurs primarily via online discussions. In this paper, we describe an ongoing research project that focuses on examining and understanding student engagement in collaborative online discussions within a formal…

Studying the networked nature of social and cognitive aspects of learner interactions is the key to understanding how successful collaborative learning occurs in asynchronous online discussion forums (AODFs). Guided by network science and multiplex network analysis, this study compared the differences of network structure and properties between…

This research aimed to explore (1) the characteristics and patterns of student interactions on online discussion boards throughout a course using social network analysis (SNA) and (2) the mediating effect of social presence, as the underlying mechanism, on the relationship between these interactions and students' learning outcomes. Eighty-four…

This dissertation examines the interaction patterns that happen in an online learning environment. While many studies look at online learning through the lens of the learner or the learning environment, few studies look at the interaction patterns that happen through the digital traces captured by computational tools. Based on the conceptual…

Community-based courses, driven by connectivist learning theory, provide learners with a social environment that supports collaborative problem solving (CPS). The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of potential collaborators before they engage in CPS. This study analyzed a community-based course, a cMOOC with a total of…

This study investigated the dynamics of complex interactions within inquiry-based (IB) discussions by visualizing patterns using social network analysis. Researchers explored network measures when learners participated in inquiry-based discussions with Practical Inquiry Model (PIM) and non-PIM questions while playing the weekly moderator's role.…

The recent model of Networked flow (NF) mapped out factors underlying optimal creative collaboration in blended spaces (physical and digital). NF conceives creativity as an evolving network bridging material and symbolic resources of the creative collaboration process at both inter and the intra-group levels. First, this model posits that optimal…

Purpose: Founded in sociocultural theories of learning, the authors argue that engaging learners in collaborative knowledge building is critical. When responding to others' ideas, research shows that learners in online settings more frequently focus on surface-level aspects of colleagues' contributions -- sharing, comparing and praising -- rather…

The Social Network Analysis (SNA) techniques allow modelling and analysing the interaction among individuals based on their attributes and relationships. This approach has been used by several researchers in order to measure the social processes in collaborative learning experiences. But oftentimes such measures were calculated at the final state…

With the currently growing interest in social network services, many college courses use social network services as platforms for discussions, and a number of studies have been conducted on the use of social network analysis to measure students' participation in online discussions. This study aims to demonstrate the difference between counting…

An asynchronous online discussion (AOD) is one format of instructional methods that facilitate student-centered learning. In the wealth of AOD research, this study evaluated how students' behavior on AOD influences their academic outcomes. This case study compared the differential analytic methods including web log mining, social network analysis…

An ecomap is a social work data collection tool that is used to gather data about a participant's environment. Derived from Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory, the ecomap can be used in adult education and human resource development to record information of in-and-out-of-work and learning experiences and show how these interactions support…

Context: Collaboration within school teams is considered to be important to build the capacity school teams need to work in a data-based way. In a school characterized by a strong collaborative culture, teachers may have more access to the knowledge and skills for analyzing data, teachers have more opportunity to discuss the performance goals to…

This paper reports on a small-scale study of the social interactions between six children labelled with special educational needs and their peers in their respective early years settings. Data from play observations, photographs and staff interviews is used to examine the dynamics of the connections that they make with other children. The position…

The aim of this article is to gain knowledge about what it means to be a learner using social media in an educational setting. The article presents an ethnographic study of students in a multiethnic community in Oslo who participate in a social networking site called Space2cre8 (S28). In this article, we set out to explore the kind of space for…