Online collaborative discussion (OCD) focuses on promoting individual knowledge inquiry and group knowledge construction through active peer interactions and communications. In practice, it is necessary to explore how different modes of OCD come into play, in which student engagement can function as an evaluating indicator. To identify student…

This dissertation investigates the role of multimedia applications in enhancing student engagement in higher education, with a particular focus on the dynamics of asynchronous discussion forums and lurking behaviors. Leveraging multimedia applications facilitates dynamic, inquiry-based discussions that promote deeper cognitive engagement and…

The 'e-mediating' or otherwise 'five-stage' instructional design model for e-learning focusses on the construction of knowledge through the gradual development of socialisation. The study in hand aimed to capture the socialisation as it develops in an asynchronous teacher training course in Digital Literacy, designed and implemented with the…

Learners in asynchronous discussion forums are inundated with diverse options when it comes to interaction. This enables the embodiment of various styles of participation. On the other hand, the affective domain tends to be overlooked in the online discussion context. The modeling of discussion activities based on both cognitive and affective…

Although researchers recognize the importance of discussing support for math learning within online learning communities, there is a lack of relevant network classifying methods and analyses at the group level to understand the behavioral differences between groups with varying levels of activity, including their mathematical literacies. In this…

This study aims to investigate the effects of competition through a digital leaderboard in gamified online discussions on learners' behavioral and cognitive engagement in learning. Twenty-three graduate students pursuing master's degree in instructional technology in a public university in Indonesia were involved in a five-week quasi-experiment (N…

Personal stories serve learning and socioemotional functions in teaching. Instructors share personal stories with students to promote engagement, foster learning, and create a sense of community. Students may also share personal stories with each other for similar reasons. Thus, the current study explored how often, and why, students (N = 79)…

Discussion boards can provide a glimpse into the regular and substantive interaction required in online courses. Advances in technology and an increased interest in learning analytics now provides researchers with billions of data points about instructor and student interaction within a learning management system (LMS). This study used LMS data to…

The three research papers completed and compiled to make up this dissertation explore the relationship between social presence and social construction of knowledge in asynchronous online discussion forums in higher education courses in the instructional technology field. Paper 1 is a literature review of the interaction analysis model (IAM)…

Grounded on cognitive elaboration theory, this study aims to investigate how students' dyadic conceptual elaboration changed with different group compositions, namely presence/absence of instructor and unfamiliar students in online asynchronous discussion. Adopting a repeated measure experimental design, data were collected from third-year…

Participation in online courses has become essential for training language professionals in under-resourced contexts with skills in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) (Godwin-Jones, 2014). Most online CALL courses use asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) to facilitate meaningful learning for participants. Although…

Improving social presence has long been a goal for online instruction; with the shift to emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus on improving social presence has only become more imperative. In asynchronous online courses, social interaction typically relies on discussion groups. Despite this, little research has been…

Responding to the need for learning to remain engaging and productive while classrooms have moved online, a qualitative study was conducted to gain greater insight into the use of asynchronous online discussions as a replacement for their in-class counterpart. Specifically, the researchers aimed to gauge student responses to their use of the…

The shift of evidence-based, active and inquiry-based pedagogy to online modalities has typically been done with a synchronous model, using video conferencing technology to facilitate interaction and collaboration amongst students. Such an approach can be infeasible for some students and create inequitable situations within a class. This paper…

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, courses were forced into an online format as universities paused in-person learning and consequently, students were required to adjust to online learning. The objective of the current study was to determine the effect of optional assessments designed to promote engagement in a fourth-year asynchronous online…