An Empirical Study on Learner Interactive Behavior in SPOC Forum

• Main Authors: Lin, Yu-ru, Zhang, Yi, Gao, Han-Rui, Mo, Wei
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Collaboration; Correlation; Education; Electronic learning; interaction; interaction quality; Reliability; social network analysis; Social networking (online); SPOC forum; Technological innovation
• ISSN: 2166-0549
• DOI: 10.1109/EITT50754.2020.00044

As an assisted instruction platform for online learning, SPOC provides a learning avenue for learners to communicate and share knowledge. This research collects discussion posts in a course forum on the SPOC platform of Central China Normal University, and uses social network analysis, content analysis, and correlation analysis methods to analyze the structure and quality of interaction. As a result of the conducted analyses: the overall network structure is relatively tight, but the dynamic characteristics of the interactive structure show instability. The interactive content mainly stays at the low level of "view sharing and clarification", while the high-level interactive content such as "consultation construction", "inspection and modification", "achievement and application" is less. Further analysis of the relationship between the interaction structure and the interaction quality found that they have a mutually promoting interaction relationship, so the network density value can be used as a reference indicator of the interaction quality. In addition, teachers' guidance and requirements have a significant role in promoting the establishment of interactive relationships. In the process of dynamic formation of interactive networks, isolated learners are more stable than core learners. Therefore, teachers should pay more attention in the teaching.