Abstract:

Networked learning (NL) provides opportunities for learners especially in higher education (HE) to develop their critical thinking in problem solving, an important 21st century competency, through dialogue with fellow learners to consider other perspectives, share and critique ideas and generate fruitful arguments. However, much of the literature in NL appear not to have yet examined NL environments at the HE level with aim of identifying the types of interactions that are richer and more likely to lead to more positive learning outcomes from these environments. Therefore a study was carried out to investigate some of these dialog interactions. During the study, 41 participants firstly undertook a computer science related topic assessment, secondly collaborated in small groups in an online chatroom environment on a computer science challenge on the same topic, and then finally undertook a second assessment. The captured corpus of participant conversations was manually coded then counted by dialogic indicator pairs against the corresponding participants. In terms of quantitative learning and critical thinking improvement through knowledge building as hypothesized, we investigated the dialogic indictor combination pairs that may have influenced the second assessment scores given the first assessment scores, and those leading pairs in terms of strength statistically using a set of regression models. The results demonstrated, that of the seven models and hypotheses examined, six, including all the hypotheses, were rejected outright suggesting that participants (1) contributing ideas alone while brain storming in a small group (2) justifying or asking for clarifications on conclusion statements made by another participant and (3) agreeing with an idea given by another participant with some justifications all have little or no positive learning consequences and may not help in building critical thinking. But the results suggest that the requesting the clarification or for an explanation of, or to prove the impact of an idea or a suggestion by a participant, may be the most significant contributory dialogic factor in generating a positive learning outcome and promoting critical thinking in NL environments even in small frequencies promoting the argument that higher-level questioning promotes problem solving during group discussions. On closer inspection of some of these interactions and about whom the interactions are attributed to, it was shown that these (1) command utterances in high occurrences and (2) participants acting as commanding moderators, leading and driving the group discussions influenced critical thinking. Discussions and implications of the findings follow to provide insightful understanding of this indictor pair and how this type of interaction, if employed in a NL setting and carefully, can enhance critical thinking capabilities in HE. The study provided some evidence that enhanced critical thinking and knowledge building during NL sessions that can be quantified statistically from the corpuses perhaps only from clarification of impact utterances. The study also suggests that instructors, in allowing participants to form groups to collaborate for learning in NL environments, should be mindful of the hierarchical social structure that is likely to form implicitly and the possible learning impact on the respective groups from the structures.

Keywords:

Networked learning, interactions, corpuses.