Educational Technology Commons^™

Characteristics Of Initial Posts And Peer Engagement: Density Score Analyses For Social Presence In Online Discussions, Kathy Hanselman, Leping Liu

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

A common activity in online courses that allows for student interaction is the asynchronous discussion; however, discussions do not inherently lead to meaningful engagement among students. This study explores how the moves that students make in their initial discussion posts influence the emotional engagement of their peers in response posts. 1500 asynchronous online discussion messages were collected from an undergraduate online course offered at a western state university. 608 online discussion threads were analyzed to determine how the characteristics of initial posts are associated with the engagement in peer responses. Six characteristic variables from initial posts were identified and analyzed. …