A Survey of Factors Contributing to Learners' “Listening” Behaviors in Asynchronous Online Discussions

Sixty-seven undergraduates taking either a Blended Business Course (BBC) or an Online Education Course (OEC) were surveyed about factors influencing their “listening” behaviors in asynchronous online course discussions. These are the ways they attend to the posts made by others: which posts they ope...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of educational computing research 2012-01, Vol.47 (4), p.461-480
Main Authors: Wise, Alyssa Friend, Marbouti, Farshid, Hsiao, Ying-Ting, Hausknecht, Simone
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Asynchronous Communication
BBC
Blended Learning
Business
Business Administration Education
Canada
College Instruction
Computer assisted instruction
Computer Mediated Communication
Correlation
Discussion
Education
Education Courses
Electronic Learning
Foreign Countries
Goal Orientation
Messages
Multiple Regression Analysis
Online
Online Courses
Online Surveys
Predictor Variables
Questionnaires
Statistical Analysis
Strategy
Student Attitudes
Student Behavior
Student Characteristics
Student Surveys
Students
Teacher Education Programs
Undergraduate Students
Web Based Instruction
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Summary:Sixty-seven undergraduates taking either a Blended Business Course (BBC) or an Online Education Course (OEC) were surveyed about factors influencing their “listening” behaviors in asynchronous online course discussions. These are the ways they attend to the posts made by others: which posts they open, how they engage with open posts, and which posts they choose to respond to. Goal-orientations were also assessed. Results indicate that student decisions about which posts to open relied strongly on discussion reply-structure and message timing; authorship was important only to BBC students. Once open, OEC students often scanned posts to decide whether to read in-depth. In the BBC, similar triage strategies were used by work-avoidant students, while mastery students read posts thoroughly. In deciding which posts to reply to, BBC students favored posts that agreed with them while OEC students favored those that disagreed. Course and student characteristics that may account for these differences are discussed and implications for research and practice are presented.
ISSN:0735-6331
1541-4140
DOI:10.2190/EC.47.4.f