ERIC Number: EJ1426382
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Jun
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1560-4292
EISSN: EISSN-1560-4306
Automatic Classification of Online Discussions and Other Learning Traces to Detect Cognitive Presence
Verena Dornauer; Michael Netzer; Éva Kaczkó; Lisa-Maria Norz; Elske Ammenwerth
International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, v34 n2 p395-415 2024
Cognitive presence is a core construct of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. It is considered crucial for deep and meaningful online-based learning. CoI-based real-time dashboards visualizing students' cognitive presence may help instructors to monitor and support students' learning progress. Such real-time classifiers are often based on the linguistic analysis of the content of posts made by students. It is unclear whether these classifiers could be improved by considering other learning traces, such as files attached to students' posts. We aimed to develop a German-language cognitive presence classifier that includes linguistic analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool and other learning traces based on 1,521 manually coded meaningful units from an online-based university course. As learning traces, we included not only the linguistic features from the LIWC tool, but also features such as attaching files to a post, tagging, or using terms from the course glossary. We used the k-nearest neighbor method, a random forest model, and a multilayer perceptron as classifiers. The results showed an accuracy of up to 82% and a Cohen's K of 0.76 for the cognitive presence classifier for German posts. Including learning traces did not improve the predictive ability. In conclusion, we developed an automatic classifier for German-language courses based on a linguistic analysis of students' posts. This classifier is a step toward a teacher dashboard. Our work also provides the first fully CoI-coded German dataset for future research on cognitive presence.
Descriptors: Electronic Learning, Discussion, Classification, Automation, Learning Processes, Cognitive Processes, German, Linguistics
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A