Assessing messaging activity in an online discussion forum using an innovation adoption approach

Assessing messaging activity in an online Assessing messaging activity in an online discussion forum using an innovation discussion forum using an innovation

adoption approachadoption approach

Steven Lopes AbrantesInstituto Politécnico de Viseu

(Portugal)[email protected]

Luis Borges GouveiaUniversidade Fernando Pessoa

(Portugal)[email protected]

ICTEL – International Conference on Technology-Enhance Learning27-July-2011

Main Purpose of the studyMain Purpose of the study

• Verify which of the students are in the initial and the majority market of adopters;

• Classify what type of messages do these different kind of students send when using an online discussion forum , involved in this study, and

• It was felt that learning was to acquire knowledge through a process of attention, memorization, and reproduction of it;

• The integration of computer in education is now a reality impossible to ignore and one that must be studied;

Technology EnvironmentsTechnology Environments

Technology EnvironmentsTechnology Environments

• New technologies allow the creation of new knowledge spaces;

• Now, besides the school, also the working place and the home have become places for education and learning;

• The computer can still be understood, not as one common tool, but a tool that support and foster collaborative learning.

Collaborative Technology Collaborative Technology

EnvironmentsEnvironments

• With collaborative technology environments people today can spread knowledge more easily, compared with the 60s, mainly due to the emergence of the Internet .

• The use of new technologies leads us increasingly to a student-centered model;

• This model is essential to have an intensive communication both among students, and between students and teachers;

• The forums are one of the key components for this type of communication;

• Forum popularity is due to the fact that it is available 24 hours, 7 days a week, allowing users to operate anytime and anywhere.

Collaborative Technology Collaborative Technology

EnvironmentsEnvironments

Innovation and diffusion in Innovation and diffusion in

TechnologyTechnologyThe adoption of innovation has been a research subject studied by Everett M. Rogers

• Moore (2001) examined the issue of innovation adoption and stated that there is a "break in the normal curve"

• (Geoghegan, 1994) identifies four factors that might facilitate the crossing of the abyss:• Recognition; • Vertical orientation; • Convincing value; • Institutional commitment.

Innovation and diffusion in Innovation and diffusion in

TechnologyTechnology

• Although the use of forums in the context of higher education is already widely used, some issues associated with its utilization arise; o The evaluation issue is quite complex and raises many

questions; o With the simple counting of posts of each participant in an

online discussion forum, you cannot measure the quality of interactions;

• This study uses Mesquita (2007) approach to classify the students messages

Evaluating online discussion Evaluating online discussion

forumsforums

The studyThe study

• This study involves one hundred and twelve students from a higher education institution;

• The main tool used was Google Groups;• This study uses:

• Classification of messages (Mesquita, 2007);

• The scores of individual innovation developed by Anderson, Varnhagen and Campbell (1999);

In this study: • University school students;• 78.57% were males; • 84,82% had ages between sixteen and twenty

four years;

The studyThe study

IM(14)

MM(67)

The studyThe study

The studyThe study

IM MM

Concentração 189 749

Number of messages/Innovation

Average number of messages/Innovation

IM MM

3 2 1 3 2 1

1,85 1,2 1,4 2,4 1,4 2

ConclusionsConclusions

• The majority of the students were males, had ages between sixteen and twenty four years and that most of the students have already used discussion forums .

• For the case of the classification of innovation for the students, we verified that they had a set of scores that were in a range between 16 and 31 .

ConclusionsConclusions

• The analysis of data allows us to conclude that the students sent a total of 455 messages: o185 were classified as Very Goodo113 Goodo157 classified as Positive o45 classified as not significant

Conclusions Conclusions

• Students that belong to the initial market, sent less messages, than the students that belong to the majority market;

• The most innovative users send more messages than the other users.