Maria Trache

Meaningful Online Discussions in an Online Master’s Research Methods Course

Maria Trache, PhD

Associate Professor
Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, College of Education

The issue of meaningfulness of online discussions is crucial in creating a truly engaging virtual environment that fosters active learning. Even more difficult is to attain this goal in a graduate research methods course that has one main objective: help students develop the mindset required to think through, design, execute and evaluate research studies. The purpose of my project is to examine the content of students’ posts in response to instructor questions and the extent of interaction among students responding to each other in a graduate research methods course offered entirely online. The idea is to understand the dynamics of online discussions and whether students are truly engaged and interested in the discussion or are just trying to respond in order to accumulate points. The main research questions are: What is the frequency of student participation in weekly online discussions? Which online contributions can be characterized as meaningful? What are the characteristics of students who engage in meaningful discussions? Are meaningful discussions related to positive course outcomes as measured by final grades or other measures? The final project could be a journal paper, but a presentation of preliminary findings and personal reflections will be included in a narrated PowerPoint.

Maria Trache

Hello, I’d be happy to hear about your experiences with online learning either as instructors or students. How do we interact with the course content? How do we establish a social presence? How meaningful and engaging are the online discussions?
- Lydia Pyburn
  
  As a student I took chose to get my master’s online because it was convenient with my work schedule. I think because online classes are marketed as convenient and work with your family and work schedule, students don’t necessarily see the need to engage as the degree is a means to an end. Also, I think the most engaged I was on a discussion if it was something I had an interest in or experience talking about. I have seem some discussion threads get off topic as well so they weren’t meaningful.
Marcela Gutierrez

Hi Maria. As a research instructor, I know how challenging it can be to engage students in research. It will be great to see how online discussions impact their ability to think critically about research.
- Maria Trache
  
  yes, especially for a research class, I’ve also wondered if online is working. The way I learned to do research was by collaborating with someone who knew it better and involved me in a project.
J. T. Dellinger

Hi Maria - did you also teach this class as in-person? If so, did you notice a difference between the quality of responses or better/worse outcomes?
- Maria Trache
  
  No, this is an online class
Peggy Semingson

Great job focusing on the social presence and cognitive engagement as constructs! I am also looking at discussion board content for my study.
- Maria Trache
  
  There is a lot of data that can be extracted from the discussion board. I don’t really have the right methods to do a proper analysis, my quant skills don’t help much. I should ask you for advise..
  - Martin Wallace
    
    Maria, I hope you will consider asking for help at the Library. We have some folks who can help you with textual data analysis. Ask Peace about this!!!
Regina Urban

Research methods is not an easy course for students. I found it interesting that around half of your students chose to establish an active social presence on the discussion boards. I wonder what made them more likely to do so (beyond familiarity with each other from previous courses)…versus students who chose to have a less active social presence on the discussion boards. I’m also curious about the timing of the posts from each group. Were those students who were more likely to have an active social presence also more likely to post early in the discussion board window? I’ll be curious to hear about your findings.