LING SIEW WOEI1*,

KOO AH CHOO2,

LIM YAN PENG3

123MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY, FACULTY OF CREATIVE MULTIMEDIA, 63000

CYBERJAYA, MALAYSIA

THREE ACTION RESEARCH CYCLES: REASONS ENCOURAGE OR INHIBIT

ASYNCHRONOUS ONLINE DISCUSSION PARTICIPATION

Who I am.

lecturer at a private university in Malaysia

conducted lectures larger classes of 200 students

Learning Management Systems (LMS)

Asynchronous Online Discussion AOD)

can promote critical thinking at higher education (Chiu, 2009).

nurtures critical thinking mind because it is an added-value that will benefit them in the workplace (Duangjan, 2014).

Issue

Emphasis of extrinsic motivationEvidence

Lecturers worried participation would be low if none was rewarded (Graham & Scarborough, 2001).

3 to 5%, increased to 10% 20% (Graham & Scarborough, 2001; Nandi, Hamilton, Chang & Balbo,

2012).

Pondering : What if reward was removed?

Graham and Scarborough (2001) addressed reported that some students were not even affected with the marks thus made no endeavour to participate at all.

Intrinsic value

Spitzer (1996, p. 45) believed that motivation “should be viewed as a central element of the instruction itself. The truth is that no matter how excellent any instructional program is, learning will be no greater than the student’s level of motivation”.

Deci and Ryan (1999) reward, especially mark can be damaging to a student self-willingness.

Husen and Postlethwaite (1994) learners who are intrinsically motivated, but rewarded extrinsically has devalued their intrinsic interest in reading

Aim

seeks some understanding of the reasons that has encouraged or inhibited our students to participate in an AOD as a learning activity.

Graham and Scarborough (2001), using marks to reward participation may not be interest them.

Research methodology

open-source online discussion software, Simple Machines Forum (SMF).

supplement the traditional lecture classroom with 2-hours of lectures, 2-hours of hands-on activities.

Instrument

Cyclical process

Action Research (AR) Spiral by Middlewood, Coleman and Lumby (1999)

three aspects of self-determination dimension; structural, monitoring and involvement (Shroff & Vogel, 2009)

Respondents

Purposeful sampling (n=198)35 respondents in 2008, 29 respondents in 2009 134 respondents in 2010.

Share commonality of area of study, age group and computer literacy.

Structural Dimension

Learning environment

and foundation will be set down

to encourage the

students to take part.

Autonomy Dimension

Students will be encouraged to take charge of

the environment.

Involvement Dimension

Students will feel related and cared within the

environment.

Structural Dimension

Learning environment

and foundation were set down

to encourage the

students to take part.

Factors encouraged participation: Structural

Reasons inhibited participation: Structural

Autonomy Dimension

Students will be encouraged to take charge of

the environment.

Factors encouraged participation: Autonomy

Reasons inhibited participation: Autonomy

Involvement Dimension

Students will feel related and cared within the

environment.

Factors encouraged participation: Involvment

Reasons inhibited participation: Involment

What have I observed from the experience and what does the data

tells from the years.

Reflection

Factors that encouraged and inhibited online participation from 2008 to 2010

Cycles provided rich data of respondents

Revealed attitude and behavioural reasons such as busy and low confidence that prevented them from participating.

Study in Autonomy dimension has revealed that some participants who had forgotten their account have participated in the AOD using their friends’ account.

Learning Motivation

To provide extrinsic with caution,

To begin with intrinsic,To boost with intrinsic,

To rescue with extrinsic.

Inhibiting factors beyond motivation

attitude, behaviour, choice, time, content and learning environment. Each of these factors addressed the motivation dimension highlighted by Shroff and Vogel (2009).

Marks was only one of the minor rewardbusy schedule and priority in other coursesStudents who perceived they will gain

benefit from the activity contributed in hope to gain in knowledge and information. Some students who liked to share their knowledge would also participate in the AOD.

Participatory Action Research

may not be suitable to be adopted in this research context. The justification was PAR put equal responsibilities on both the participants and researcher because they contemplate the students as an expert due to their experience in the context of the study (Khanlou & Peter, 2005).

Students as moderators failedLack of skills and experience although

knowledgeableGained jealous and others remain quiet

throughout the activity.

Summary

marks does not ensure participation on AOD.contributing factor that had encouraged

participation was the mainly due to their intrinsic reason of knowing the benefit and value of the task.

attitude, behaviour, choice, time, content and learning environment are some inhibiting factors.

highlight the benefits and caution factors to students

Concluding Action Research

Longitudinal study

Action learningCase study

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