The influence of instructional methods on the quality of online discussion

In this case study, we examined the influence of five groups of communication activities on the quality of students’ contributions to online discussion. The activities were the nominal group technique, debate, invited expert, WebQuest and reflective deliberation. Quality of discussion was operationalised as cognitive presence , a construct developed to investigate the role of critical discourse in higher, distance education contexts. Using the quantitative content analysis technique, the postings of 19 students in an undergraduate university course were assigned to one of the four categories of cognitive presence. Across the five activities, the proportion and number of contributions categorised in the highest phases of cognitive presence was low (20.21%), but was highest during the Webquest and debate activities. There are three advantageous qualities of these two activities, we argue: 1. They were well structured. 2. They provided clearly defined roles and responsibilities for the students. 3. They provoked the students to explicitly confront others’ opinions. Introduction Traditionally, distance education involves learning and teaching contexts in which the instructor is separated from the student (Keegan, 1990). The most obvious aspects of the separation—spatial and temporal—give rise to other, perhaps more detrimental separations including social, cultural, situational and psychological. In an influential paper, Moore (1991) referred to these collectively as the transactional distance and in subsequent decades distance educators have sought ways to reduce the transactional distance so that learning could be enhanced (eg, Kanuka, Collett & Caswell, 2002). Instructional methods and online discussion 261 © 2006 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2006 British Educational Communications and Technology Agency. Early research on these efforts was encouraging. Under some circumstances, communication technologies were used to bridge transactional distances with corresponding improvements in achievement, satisfaction and retention rates (Chen & Willits, 1999; Saba & Shearer, 1994). Unfortunately, the technologies available to distance educators at the time (eg, two-way audio conferencing, room-based video conferencing) were expensive, complex and unreliable, and they diminished the possibilities of ‘anytime, anywhere’ learning that attracted many students to distance learning environments (Bates, 2005). With the emergence of internet communication technologies, it became apparent that these shortcomings might be overcome. Studies on learning effectiveness and internet communication technologies continued with renewed zeal. Unfortunately, research has yet to reveal an unequivocal relationship between text-based, asynchronous internet communication technologies and an enhanced distance learning experience (Bernard