Can online discussions benefit students’ learning in online courses? Evidence From teaching introduction to microeconomics

Q1 Social Sciences

E-Learning Pub Date : 2023-06-23 DOI:10.1177/20427530231170765

Tin-Chun Lin

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

In this research, we investigated whether online discussions can significantly benefit students’ learning in online courses. We designed an experiment by dividing 129 students who enrolled in four fully online “Introduction to Microeconomics” courses taught by the same instructor into four groups (one control group and three experimental groups). We adopted econometric analysis to investigate the issue. Our empirical evidence demonstrated that online discussions can significantly benefit students’ exam performance in online courses only when instructors are effectively engaged in discussions. Instructors who do not effectively engage in online discussions had a less than significant effect on students’ exam performance even when peer-responses were required. On the other hand, the effect was positive and significant when instructors effectively engaged but the level of significance was weak (at the 10% level of significance) and began with a later exam (Exam 4, out of a total of five exams) rather than the first exam or earlier. Detailed discussions about these phenomena are offered as are several possible reasons for these findings. We recommend significantly increasing weights for online discussions in the final course grade and including exam questions that directly reflect online discussion questions (including serious participation in discussions and requiring that students provide answers to instructors’ follow-up questions). These additions would significantly benefit students’ learning in online courses.

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在线讨论是否有利于学生在网络课程中的学习?证据来自微观经济学导论的教学

在这项研究中，我们调查了在线讨论是否能显著有益于学生在在线课程中的学习。我们设计了一个实验，将129名参加同一位讲师教授的四门完全在线的“微观经济学导论”课程的学生分为四组（一个对照组和三个实验组）。我们采用了计量经济学分析来研究这个问题。我们的实证证据表明，只有当教师有效参与讨论时，在线讨论才能显著提高学生在在线课程中的考试成绩。即使在需要同伴回应的情况下，没有有效参与在线讨论的教师对学生考试成绩的影响也不太显著。另一方面，当教师有效参与时，效果是积极和显著的，但显著性水平很弱（在10%的显著性水平上），并从后来的考试（总共五次考试中的第四次考试）开始，而不是第一次或更早的考试。对这些现象进行了详细的讨论，并提出了这些发现的几个可能原因。我们建议在期末课程中大幅增加在线讨论的权重，包括直接反映在线讨论问题的考试问题（包括认真参与讨论，并要求学生回答导师的后续问题）。这些新增内容将大大有利于学生在网上课程中的学习。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

E-Learning Social Sciences-Education

CiteScore

6.20

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： E-Learning and Digital Media is a peer-reviewed international journal directed towards the study and research of e-learning in its diverse aspects: pedagogical, curricular, sociological, economic, philosophical and political. This journal explores the ways that different disciplines and alternative approaches can shed light on the study of technically mediated education. Working at the intersection of theoretical psychology, sociology, history, politics and philosophy it poses new questions and offers new answers for research and practice related to digital technologies in education. The change of the title of the journal in 2010 from E-Learning to E-Learning and Digital Media is expressive of this new and emphatically interdisciplinary orientation, and also reflects the fact that technologically-mediated education needs to be located within the political economy and informational ecology of changing mediatic forms.

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