Online Synchronous Discussion in Face-to-Face Classroom Based on WeChat

Abstract

In recent years, the online synchronous classroom has developed rapidly in higher education, which has attracted the attention of many educational scholars. This study collected online synchronous discussion records during two months based on WeChat of an undergraduate students group and a graduate students group. The undergraduate group contains 355 messages and the graduate group contains 521 messages. All messages were coded by two trained coders. Content analysis and lag sequential analysis were conducted to explore the behavioral patterns. The analyses also revealed that the characteristics and differences of the interaction behavior discussed by different learners. Undergraduate students and graduate students are good at proving the rationality of the view. They have a lot of the behavior of emotional communication in the classroom. Graduate students are more adept at asking questions and thinking deeply than undergraduate students. And graduate students are better at crossing three dimensions of behavior than undergraduate students. Instructional suggestions were proposed to facilitate further online synchronous classroom interaction.