Abstract:

Research Focus:
A number of studies (Cheng & Chau, 2016; Erichsen & Bolliger, 2011; Gao, Zhang, & Franklin, 2013; Kim, Park, & Cozart, 2014) report that students’ attitude toward online discussion depends on social and cultural factors including but not limited to communication, connectedness, support in online environment. The field lacks explanatory studies that relate students’ attitude toward online discussion to quality of the discussion. Considering the importance of this relationship, this study aimed at the following research questions: (1) to what extent students’ preferences in discussion format depend on quality of online discussion? (2) what is the nature of students’ affective disposition toward online discussion?

Methodology:
The explanatory mixed methods study focused on the examination of connections between teachers’ preferred format of discussion and their evaluation of the quality of the discussion (in the study, we employed asynchronous discussion). Pre-service teachers (N=108) were selected for the study using cluster sampling technique based on their enrollment in university-based mathematics methods course. Teachers responded to a questionnaire with the following four questions:
1) what is your preferred format of class discussion (choices: a) face-to-face; b) hybrid; c) online)
2) explain why (open-ended question);
3) evaluate quality of discussion in the class (choices: a) high; b) medium; c) low);
4) explain why (open-ended question).

Students’ disposition toward online discussion was indirectly measured by their preferred format of discussion (question 1 and 3). The nature of students’ disposition was indirectly analyzed by their narrative responses to questions 2 and 4. Considering categorical nature of the quantitative data collected for question 1 and 3, we employed a non-parametric chi-square technique. The narrative data for questions 2 and 4 were analyzed using meaning coding technique (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009).

Results:
Main results of the study reveal that students’ disposition toward online discussion relates to students’ evaluations of the quality of the discussion in the course. The students’ responses to question 1 were distributed as following: 65 students (60.2%) preferred f2f discussion format, 13 (12%) – hybrid format, and 30 (27.8%) – online format. Among those who preferred f2f format only 17 students (26.2%) evaluated online discussion as a high quality whereas 22 students (73%) out of those who preferred online discussion format rated the online discussion at a high quality level. Most significant finding was among students who preferred hybrid format: 12 students (92%) rated the quality of online discussion as high. Thus, results of the study suggest that students’ disposition toward discussion could be strongly associated with the quality of the discussion among other factors (e.g., social and cultural factors).

Significance:
Findings of this study contribute to the body of research claiming that the quality of online discussion is an important factor in students’ attitude toward online discussion. Findings of this study could add potential value to the body of research-based recommendations on the design and development of quality online discussions.

Keywords:

Online discussion, affective disposition, quality of online discussion, asynchronous discussion.