The effects of different instructor facilitation approaches on students' interactions during asynchronous online discussions

This study compared the impact of three different facilitation approaches on elementary teacher candidates' interactions in an asynchronous discussion board as well as their satisfaction with an online educational technology course. These participants were enrolled in three different sections of the same online course. In the first section (Group 1), the instructor responded to each student's initial message regarding the discussion question and then required students to respond to at least two of their classmates' postings. In the second section (Group 2), the instructor responded to each student's initial message to the discussion question, but did not require students to respond to other classmates' postings. Instead, it was the student's voluntary choice. In the third group (Group 3), the instructor did not respond to each student's initial message on the discussion question, but required students to respond to at least two classmates' postings. Data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively, by using ANOVA, social networking analysis (SNA) and content analysis. The results indicated that in Group 2, voluntary interactions among students rarely occurred, resulting in the instructor primarily providing feedback to the students, with a low number of cues for social presence. in comparing Groups 1 and 3, when students were required to respond to one another, too much instructor intervention did not lead to more interactions among the students. Rather, when the instructor's intervention was minimal, students tended to more freely express their thoughts and opinions, with a large number of cues for social presence. However, more interactions among students, occurring in a required setting, may not have correlated with student satisfaction with the online course ratings and the instructors' ratings. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.