| Chapter 1: | Chatrooms and Learning Behaviors |
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Having looked at what makes chat a unique technology, Chapter 2 shifts focus to discuss educational research on those behaviors that I will explore in more detail in this book: equitable participation patterns and interaction quality. Research shows that equitable participation patterns are an important component of learning, but that various factors inhibit participation. Educational research also shows, however, that equitable participation patterns are necessary, but not sufficient, for learning. In order for discussions to be pedagogically useful, students must explore a variety of perspectives on a given issue and must learn to use evidence to support these perspectives.
Chapter 3 looks at understanding why chat environments seem to lead to greater equity of participation than face-to-face classrooms. Through looking at foreign language learning, I show that the initiate-respond-evaluate (IRE) cycle, which develops naturally in the classroom, does not seem to develop in the online environment. As a result, the instructor dominates classroom conversations, but online discussions have more equitable participation. I use an aspect of the social psychology literature—the bystander effect—as a lens to highlight some of the social and environmental cues that seem to influence this behavior. This chapter presents a case study of two students, and suggests some explanations for the patterns observed. In doing so, I provide evidence that properties of chat media influence power and dominance relationships through (a) changing the mechanisms normally used to control the conversational floor and (b) reducing inhibition levels in (normally) shy students.
Chapter 4 explores how these behavioral changes influence the quality of educational discussions. As one relevant measure of “quality,” I focus on the content of group discussions in a professional ethics class.