Educational Technology & Society (Jan 2024)
Students’ interaction, satisfaction and cognitive presence in online discussions: Comparing novice and experienced instructors with distinguished interaction patterns
Abstract
This study compares the interaction patterns of a novice and an experienced instructor using Social Network Analysis (SNA) and content analysis and explores how students’ interactions, degrees of satisfaction, and cognitive presence differ according to the different interaction patterns of the two instructors. Results showed some differences in the interaction characteristics between the sections. First, the experienced instructor was the most powerful actor in the course, while some students in the novice instructor’s section showed higher outdegree centrality than the instructor. In addition, the novice instructor’s section was a more active network than the experienced instructor’s section in which the instructor showed the highest outdegree and indegree and also seemed to have more reciprocal relations. In terms of satisfaction and cognitive presence levels, the students in the experienced instructor’s section in which the instructor focused more on triggering events or exploration activities, reported higher satisfaction than the students in the novice instructor’s section. However, there was no significant difference in students’ cognitive presence levels. A key finding of research suggests that instructors need to balance their participation, stimulate students’ curiosity, and encourage brainstorming—rather than directly offering solutions—to improve students’ satisfaction in asynchronous discussion-based online learning. This research also indicates that well-designed discussion topics may contribute more to developing students’ cognitive presence than the instructor’s interaction patterns. Finally, this research highlights the effectiveness of SNA and content analysis to explore instructors’ and students’ interactions on discussion boards.
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