UNDERSTANDING COLLABORATIVE KNOWLEDGE CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES IN THE ELECTRONIC DISCOURSE OF LEARNING GROUPS

In sociocultural constructivist learning processes, interactions enable information exchange and meaning negotiation between learners that lead to knowledge building. Online courses are adopting synchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies to facilitate interaction between distant learners. However, there are concerns that the real-time and fast-paced conversational characteristics of synchronous computer-mediated (chat) discourse do not support substantive discussions and the resultant 'superficial talk' does not contribute to learning. Given these concerns, this study examines the extent to which chat CMC technology facilitates group knowledge construction processes as evidenced in the electronic discourse of two undergraduate tutorial groups. An Exchange Structure Analysis framework was applied to code task-oriented electronic exchanges, from chat tutorial discussion transcripts to identify the interactional purposes of exchanges based on structural categories and the underlying pragmatic intentions. A web survey was also administered to examine student perceptions regarding extent of discussion depth and knowledge appropriation during tutorial discussions. Discourse analysis results for topic development revealed efforts by learners to extend discussions by critically evaluating the meaning of what others had said. Also, there were group level differences in the tendency to develop main conversational threads further in terms of direction and depth. The discourse analysis results were consistent with web survey results in which student respondents reported the availability of clarifications from peers and own appropriation of knowledge from peers' contributions in discussions. The conclusion discusses the implications of the findings for improving the design and facilitation of online learning activities.