Discussion forums provide students with accessible platforms for group discussions in e-learning environments. They also help lecturers to track and check student discussions. To improve student learning, it is important for lecturers to identify students' cognitive engagement in discussion forums. Therefore, this study aims to investigate…

The purpose of the present study was to elaborate the effect of providing the constructive feedback to open and distant students who enrolled in the online learning program. The participants were 30 students who studied in eight sessions of the online course. They had to discuss course content in available chat forum of the Learning LMS and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of theoretically-guided, instructional design strategies in an online learning module that was implemented in four undergraduate sport management and recreation courses. The study was framed within Social Cognitive Theory, a well-studied model for adult learning, and several instructional design…

To combat high failure and student drop-out rates, universities have developed strategies to monitor online student engagement through measurable activities. In this study, we explore if and how these monitoring activities accurately measure online engagement. We interviewed nine highly engaged online third-year students throughout a semester to…

For three months, Japanese university learners (N=40) utilized the YoTeach! application by Pedagogic and Active Learning Mobile Solutions (PALMS) Project, PolyU as a part of their English discussion class. Researchers re-purposed the application, which originally was designed to be an online classroom backchannel, as an asynchronous, pre-task…

Unlike previous research on computer-mediated discussions that has focused analysis on the final conversation as a completed product, this study was focused on the process by which the conversation was created. Using screen-capturing software, the on-screen actions of the nine participants in an online classroom discussion were recorded and…

This qualitative study explored the experiences of an online learner at a community college. The purpose of the study was to investigate community college students' perception of online courses through an examination of their experiences with online learning. The community of inquiry theory was used as a guide to better understand the importance…

The relationship between quantity of instructor to student interactions in online, asynchronous, course-specific courses at the community college level is under-researched. This quantitative, correlational study examined the relationship between the weekly number of instructor-generated posts and two course outcomes within fully online history…

Online learning is a reality in much of the world. Among the tools available for online learning, there are Online Discussion Forums (ODF), due to their potential to promote collaborative learning. However, there is a lack in the literature about the evaluation of the forums, a gap marked by the absence of quantitative tools that make it possible…

Understanding the affect expressed by learners is essential for enriching the learning experience in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). However, online learning environments, especially MOOCs, pose several challenges in understanding the different types of affect experienced by a learner. In this paper, we define two categories of emotions,…

Authentic assessment activities are those that afford learners opportunities to practice finding solutions to real-world issues and challenges, so that upon graduation they are able to apply these skills to issues and challenges they will face in their workplaces. When learners are able to do this successfully, they are judged as job ready.…

Online learning communities (OLCs) offer opportunities to help teachers engage better with technology and develop new skills through a participatory social process. This study investigates the potential of an OLC for advancing teachers' professional learning in integrating technology into their instructional practices. Drawing on two case studies…

This study investigated critical thinking indicators of students' postings on the asynchronous online discussion forums on the learning management system (LMS) at Arab Open University (AOU), Jordan. The models used to diagnose nineteen students' postings were Garrisons' (2001) thinking skills and Newman (1995). Results revealed that participants'…

This research explores the perceptions of facilitators in asynchronous online discussion to improve practice and student engagement in Higher Education. Traditional didactic delivery of learning content may fail the expectations of student and academic stakeholders. The pressure to teach within constrained resources presents challenges, but also…

Question and answer forums are becoming more popular as increasing numbers of lifelong learners rely on such forums to receive help about their learning needs. Stack Overflow (SO) is an example of such a forum used by millions of programmers. The ability of users to receive timely answers to questions is crucial to the sustainability of such…