This study explored the development trajectory of shared epistemic agency in online collaborative learning through epistemic network analysis and lag sequential analysis. It was carried out in a postgraduate course with 14 in-service teachers. Drawing on the online discussion data from six sessions and the participants' academic scores, this study…

Feedback plays a critical role in student learning and performance. However, providing students with effective feedback is challenging in online environments because of physical separation between students and instructors. Technologies can be used to enhance the effectiveness of feedback in online courses. In this article, we propose effective…

Collaboration skills have become a critical competency for health care providers. This study aims to understand how individual student characteristics and group process in the early phase of group development are associated with students' perception of their overall collaborative learning experience. The study was conducted in two consecutive…

Recent studies have demonstrated the integration of visualization technology to support collaboration and stimulate learning performance. The use of visualization tools during the collaborative activities of international students is a worthy topic for further exploration. Based on grounded and activity theories, this research uses observation and…

Joint construction of new knowledge demands that persons can express their statements in a convincing way and explore other people's arguments constructively. For this reason, more knowledge on different means to support collaborative argumentation is needed. This study clarifies whether structured interaction supports students' critical and…

Conflicts occur when learners interact with pedagogical agents and virtual characters. Such conflicts--arising from technological limitations, psychosocial perceptions, and pedagogical inadequacies--hinder communication and interaction between virtual characters and learners, and impede successful engagement with learning tasks and experiences. To…

This article explores how patterns of engagement and program design impact professional learning and development of mathematics mentor teachers as they participate in an asynchronous mentoring program, e-Mentoring for Student Success (eMSS). In specific, this study: 1) sought to determine if activity level was related to mentors' perceived…

A CMI-based online forum is designed to address the need for a system to manage students' online participation. The proposed system may reduce the time required to manage online participation. The system was evaluated by a total of 64 students enrolled in an academic semester. The evaluation has two objectives. The first was to determine the…

Deep cognitive thinking refers to a learner's purposeful and conscious manipulation of ideas toward meaningful learning. Strategies such as journaling/blogging and peer feedback have been found to promote deep thinking. This article reports a research study about the effects of two different blog leader styles on students' deep thinking as…

The web has the potential to offer an environment that can support standardized medical education to students dispersed in time or place and, in the process, respond to reduced availability of patients for practice. This exploratory article describes how we evaluated critical thinking in an online collaborative Problem-based Learning (PBL)…

This article used work from the writing assessment literature to develop a framework for assessing the impact and perceived value of written, audio, and combined written and audio feedback strategies across four global and 22 discrete dimensions of feedback. Using a quasi-experimental research design, students at three U.S. universities were…

Learner analysis and needs assessments are basic elements of all instructional design models and are of concern to those designing distance education courses. Mismatches between students' expectations and actual course features may impact learning. This investigation surveyed 249 geographically dispersed online students for the course features…

Drawing on research literature on online discussion and on reading and learning from the text, we argue that research on learning from text has much to offer but has been largely absent in informing the design and study of online learning environments. We propose several key issues to be considered in research and development of online discussion,…

Discussions of distance education courses develop according to needs/interests of conference participants, course requirements, and nature of the instructor's online facilitation. Findings of this research suggest other factors. Analysis of threads and their growth patterns reveals a bias in favor of elongated note structures, explained by a…

Explains essential factors found in recent research for student accomplishment in Web-based degree programs and how these can be facilitated in the course level through instructional design, teaching, and technical assistance. Examines academic and administrative services at the institutional level, and explains factors of both types, with…