Discussion Forums in Distance Education: Case Study in a Specialization Course

Abstract

This study was dedicated to understanding the use and perception of students participating in forums from a specialization course, identifying the degree and relevance of the role of teachers and tutors in these webspaces in order to describe the degree of student interaction and the type of responses that were posted. Data were obtained from a questionnaire offered to all students in the course; and the content analysis of all forums that a student (the first author) had access to during his trajectory through the course. The content analysis criteria were divided into three topics: Degree of interaction between students in the forums, type of student response and quality of response/interaction. The data indicate that students are more motivated when forums' statements encouraged exchanges of experiences and indications of techniques than epistemological discussions. However, most forums requested responses of a content nature. Although no student suggested excluding forums in the course, satisfaction with the obligation to respond was not unanimous, indicating that exchanging grades is still a paradigm in education, even online. Most of the analyzed forums showed interaction with student involvement and responses were argumentative and in agreement, with a lower rate of questioning and disagreement responses, indicating that teachers can better modulate statements if they want to work on other skills. Therefore, forums are shown to be important tools within distance education, with different possibilities to create a meaningful collective learning environment, but teacher is central in this process, having to actively participate in discussions and modulate type of response he wants to receive from the student.

Keywords: Interactivity. Cooperative learning. Virtual Learning Communities. Pedagogical methodology.