Investigate the Influence of Interactive Immediacy on Collaborative Knowledge Construction in Online Discussions

Abstract

Online learning platforms can be divided into two categories according to the interactive immediacy, platforms with weak immediacy and platforms with strong immediacy. This study selected one of these two kinds of platforms to investigate the differences of interaction characteristics and collaborative knowledge construction in online discussions. A total of 46 first-year master students’ online discussion texts were collected and coded as Pena-Shaff’s and Gunawardenaet's coding scheme, which led to the following conclusions: (1) online discussions with strong immediacy facilitated the formation of interactions with multiple rounds and periods of participation; and (2) online discussions with strong immediacy had more categories of interactions and deeper levels of collaborative knowledge construction than those with weak immediacy. In addition, this study gave some recommendations about online discussions in both platforms to facilitate collaborative knowledge construction.