First Impressions: The First Two Posts and their Influence on the Development of Online Question-Answer Discussion Threads
Michael Hergenrader, Joanna Drummond, Jihie Kim · 2020
Abstract Relating question and answer exchange patterns with degrees of student participation in a computer science course forumDiscussion boards have become an essential tool for communication in higher education,in part due to their integration into course management systems that are now centrallysupported by many colleges and universities. With enrollments in online computerscience and engineering courses increasing, we want to understand how students interactwith the instructor and other students, and how they learn through that interaction. Thus,our objective is to understand which student and instructor actions enable the best usageof online discussion forums for computer science and engineering courses.In this paper, we present an analysis of how different types of question and answerexchanges patterns correlate with discussion characteristics such as length and followingpost type. In modeling question and answer exchange patterns, we use Speech Acts thatrelates pairs of messages and define the roles that individual messages play, such as aquestion, answer, elaboration or/and correction. Speech Act sub-categories further definedifferent types of question and answer contributions in online discussions.We examined how different types of answers or questions to students’ messages affectfurther discussion on the same or a similar topic. The preliminary results from thesecomputer science students’ discussions indicate thatelaborated answers and hints may promote more participation from students and furtherdiscussions on related topics, in the form of longer threads. We also found preliminaryevidence that these elaborated answers and hints may not only encourage new posts in thesame thread, but promote more complex following posts. The project is theoreticallyaligned to well-studied frameworks: Self-efficacy theory and Sense of Community theory.