Elsevier

Information & Management

Volume 45, Issue 7, November 2008, Pages 499-506
Information & Management

The potential of synchronous communication to enhance participation in online discussions: A case study of two e-learning courses

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.im.2008.07.005Get rights and content

Abstract

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been adopted in most e-learning settings. However, few research studies have considered the effect of different CMC. This study examined how and why synchronous communication affected participation in online discussions. Two online classes that participated in two asynchronous and two synchronous online discussions were examined. Actual and perceived measures of participation indicated that synchronous communication induced personal participation, which could be regarded as a complement to cognitive participation. Personal participation involves more intense interaction better supported by synchronous communication while cognitive participation is a more reflective type of participation supported by asynchronous communication. In synchronous discussions, the e-learners felt that they worked together and were not restricted to only discuss course content. This was likely to induce arousal and motivation and increased convergence on meaning, especially in small groups.

Introduction

E-learning and life-long learning are considered to be important factors in the emerging knowledge society. Scholars have tried to identify the factors that underlie successful implementation of e-learning [4], [19]. It seems now that it is time to analyze the effect of using different e-learning technologies.

Before the widespread use of computer-mediated communication (CMC), Keegan [16] argued that a key element of distance education was that learners should be taught as individuals rather than in groups, but CMC has changed this; some argue that CMC has transformed the learning environment from teacher- to learner-centered; learning with others have been enabled [9]. It has been empirically shown that the success of e-learning courses depend on providing collaborative learning activities [8]. CMC may be asynchronous or synchronous, depending on whether the communication occurs in real-time or not. The dominance of work on asynchronous communication can, at least, partly be explained by their “anytime, anywhere” feature. It is generally considered “deeper” than synchronous discussions. A question arises, however: how can synchronous communication be integrated into asynchronous e-learning? This study examined how and why synchronous communication as a complement to asynchronous communication affected participation in online discussion. In it, the variable of choice was participation, which was assumed to affect learning outcomes and was expected positively to influence retention rates, satisfaction and a sense of community.

Section snippets

Theories on media choice and use

Media richness theory (MRT) argues that face-to-face communication is a rich medium while numeric documents are an example of a lean medium. The theory argues that the use of rich media reduces uncertainty, but many studies have found mixed or conflicting results. For example, e-mail can be used for complex communication and in rich ways, depending on the social context.

Two complementary theories help explain empirical results: Kock's [17] media naturalness hypothesis (MNH) and Robert and

Method

We decided to focus on two case settings. This allowed us to study them thoroughly but to elucidate more general results. An assumption of this work was that participation is a complex phenomenon, needing the use of several data collection methods in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena [3]. Consequently, electronic logs, questionnaires and interviews were used to collect both actual and perceived measures of participation in the case settings.

Results

The questionnaire contained a measure of perceived participation consisting of eight items, measured on a seven-point Likert scale. The measure was reliable in both the smaller class (Cronbach's α = 0.90) and the larger class (Cronbach's α = 0.93). Table 6 displays descriptive statistics for each item of the measure: all means for all items were higher when communicating synchronously. When comparing the total means, the difference in perceived participation between the two types of media was

Discussion

This study investigated how and why synchronous communication, as a complement to asynchronous communication, affected participation in online discussions. The results indicated that synchronous communication had the potential to enhance participation in online discussions. This was based on the following:

  • 1.

    The measure on perceived participation was higher in both settings, especially in the smaller class, when communicating synchronously.

  • 2.

    The standard deviations of sentence counts per participant

Limitations

The advantage of examining a small population is asynchronous and synchronous communication could be examined in more depth by adopting several data collection methods. However, a disadvantage is that the results are based on a rather small population of professionals of a rather high mean age. Since the study is exploratory, the results are preliminary.

This work was based on two cases, which were studied sequentially. The first was completed but later another was included in an attempt to

Conclusions

This study has shown that synchronous communication, as a complement to asynchronous communication, can positively affect participation in online discussion. This was confirmed by measures on actual as well as perceived participation. Synchronous discussions had higher sentence counts, more dense perceived social networks, and stronger perceived participation. The discussions were more focused on task and social support when compared to asynchronous discussion. The difference in levels of

Acknowledgements

This paper has benefited by comments on earlier drafts from, among others, Sven Carlsson, Christina Keller, Jörgen Lindh and Carol-Ann Soames. The author is also grateful to the Chief Editor Edgar H. Sibley for providing many constructive comments and editing the paper thoroughly. This work was supported by the Swedish Research School of Management and IT and Jönköping International Business School.

Stefan Hrastinski is a Research Fellow and Director of Master Studies in Computer and Systems Science at Uppsala University, Sweden. He received his PhD in Informatics from Lund University with a thesis titled “Participating in Synchronous Online Education”. Previously, he was a PhD Student and Lecturer in Informatics at Jönköping International Business School. Stefan's research interests include e-learning, computer-mediated communication, online communities, social software, collaborative

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    Stefan Hrastinski is a Research Fellow and Director of Master Studies in Computer and Systems Science at Uppsala University, Sweden. He received his PhD in Informatics from Lund University with a thesis titled “Participating in Synchronous Online Education”. Previously, he was a PhD Student and Lecturer in Informatics at Jönköping International Business School. Stefan's research interests include e-learning, computer-mediated communication, online communities, social software, collaborative learning and work, and design science research.

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