An analysis of the participation of an online educational discussion forum - the study of Hong Kong Cyber Campus Forum

Abstract

Information technology is now widely used in the education sector, and online discussion forum has been regarded as a useful tool for education. A large number of online forums have been set up with an unexamined assumption that participants will learn through interacting with others in the forums. This paper reports a case study of the discussion forum of the Hong Kong Cyber Campus (www.hkcampus.net). It is the in one of the largest public educational discussion forums in Hong Kong set up jointly by local higher education institutions, to provide a venue for educators, teachers, students and parents to discuss about educational issues and the use of information technology for teaching and learning. The current study addresses the following issues: (1) What are the major objects of discussion in the forum? (2) How the structure of the forum may affect interactions between the different types of participants? (3) To what extent is online discussion conducive to conceptual learning of the participants? (4) What are the characteristics of the interactions of the participants in online forum? (5) How should the moderator act effectively to facilitate discussion? What kinds of moderator's messages will spark off more discussion? What kinds of messages tend to end the discussion? To address these research questions, we have conducted an analysis of the messages of the forum generated in its first twelve months from Feb.1999 to Feb.2000. Some of the findings are highlighted in this paper, namely: (1) The objects of discussion are mostly about everyday work and life of students and teachers; (2) The structure of the forum does affect the amount of interaction between different types of participants; (3) Online discussion affords gathering opinion, exchanging information and expressing feelings; (4) Online forum appears weak in resolving conflicting views. Participants seldom exhibit a change of their beliefs during the discussion. It also tends to polarize the discussion, lead the participants to extreme points of view. This is especially salient when the participants do not share a common experience of the issue. (5) The kind of moderator's messages that try to round up, make conclusion and provide authoritative information tend to terminate the discussion, while the expression of example/experience with open meaning tend to spark off more discussion.