Used the philosophy of Matthew Lipman as the basis for a discussion-group intervention to improve peer relationships, increase children's self-understanding, enhance their respect for others, and improve critical thinking in 3- to 6-year olds. Found that children improved in their understanding that others have opinions and in their ability to…

Discusses results of a survey that was distributed via email discussion groups to determine why and how librarians and graduate students decide to enter the field of science and technology librarianship. Topics include the influence of a sci-tech background on job performance and professional association membership. (Author/LRW)

The simplicity activist defines voluntary simplicity as critical thinking and discusses its relationship to the environment, consumerism, excessive wealth, alternative education, and democracy. Voluntary simplicity involves discovering what matters, and study circles allow small groups of people to explore an "examined life." Contains…

Presents a model instructional session that was prepared and taught by librarians to introduce college students, faculty, and staff to the Internet by teaching them how to join listservs and topic-centered discussion groups. Describes the sessions' audience, learning objectives, facility, and course design. Presents a checklist for preparing an…

In a large online course, students were divided into 18 asynchronous online discussion groups with different gender mixes. The number and cognitive content of student messages were analysed. Females wrote more messages than males with no difference in the cognitive quality of message content. In mixed groups, females wrote fewer messages than in…

Rumor discourse has been conceptualized as an attempt to reduce anxiety and uncertainty via a process of social sensemaking. Fourteen rumors transmitted on various Internet discussion groups were observed and content analyzed over the life of each rumor. With this (previously unavailable) more ecologically robust methodology, the intertwined…

This article presents case studies of political literacy among primary pupils. While researching primary pupils' understanding of "enterprise", the researchers added interviews connecting this concept to the Iraq war. A sample of 10 non-representative Scottish primary schools from seven local education authorities has provided the…

Sociologists can make meaningful contributions to quantitative literacy by teaching sociological research skills in sociology classes, including introductory courses. We report on the effectiveness of requiring a research module in a large introductory class. The module is designed to teach both basic research skills and to increase awareness of…

Online discussion is a common tool to create learner-learner interaction. Whole class discussions can result in potentially hundreds of postings with students spending more time creating the illusion of participation as opposed to critical reflection and deeper learning. The purpose of this study was to determine quality of online discussion based…

A system for "anchored discussion" is compared with a system for traditional forum discussion (Blackboard), and their collaborative and communicative affordances for the collaborative processing of academic texts are investigated. Results show that discussion in the system for anchored discussion is more directed at processing the meaning of texts…

In this study, we investigated the effect of type of positive interdependence (roles, rewards, roles-plus-rewards, or no structure) and affiliation motives (high vs. low) in an asynchronous, collaborative learning environment. College reentry students worked together in small, fully online discussion groups that lasted for seven days. Results…

Although protocol analysis can be an important tool for researchers to investigate the process of collaboration and communication, the use of this method of analysis can be time consuming. Hence, an automatic coding procedure for coding dialogue acts was developed. This procedure helps to determine the communicative function of messages in online…

This study looked at the instructional and assessment effects of using learning journals in three distance asynchronous computer conferencing courses (n = 18, n = 16, n = 17). The instructor used a design-research methodology: each iteration of the course involved modifications to how learning journals were used based on analyses of the responses…

This study explored student-led facilitation strategies used to overcome the challenges of instructor-dominated facilitation, enhance the sense of learning community, and encourage student participation in online discussions. It presents a series of cases of students' facilitation strategies and using qualitative data analysis of discussion…

As part of required coursework, 112 students in an educational psychology course made asynchronous postings to online study groups. Students permitted their course marks to be used for research purposes and completed a questionnaire that assessed a range of psycho-educational characteristics as well as personal interpretations of the online study…