| Chapter 1: | Chatrooms and Learning Behaviors |
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In particular, I focus on one particularly interesting technology—text-based synchronous chat—and attempt to understand how the choice of this medium influences certain learning behaviors in small group discussions among college students. Although there are many CMC technologies that need to be explored, chat environments are particularly interesting because the synchronicity of this type of interaction resembles face-to-face classroom discussions more closely than many other CMC technologies. One noteworthy feature of chat is that research has shown that educational discussions in chatrooms tend to be much more egalitarian than similar conversations in face-to-face classrooms (Beauvois, 1992b; Kern, 1995; Warschauer, 1997; Hudson & Bruckman, 2002). Specifically, this research has found that classroom conversations are marked by instructor dominance, while online discussions have more student contributions compared with the instructor. If we are going to use this knowledge to design new online learning environments, though, we need to ask why. What are the socio-technical features of chat discussions that encourage greater equity of participation? In designing for educational discussions, we must further ask about the efficacy of these environments. How do the behavioral changes that occur in this online environment affect the quality of the conversation?
To answer these research questions, I conducted two studies. The first, in foreign language learning, looks at a case study of two students interacting in a face-to-face classroom and in an online chatroom. This study explores some of the mechanisms that seem to lead to observed behavioral changes when conversations move from one medium to the other.