An investigation on college students’ low motivation toward asynchronous
online discussions
Ninghua Han
Educational Instructional Technology
Texas Tech University, USA
Ninghua.han@ttu.edu
Steven Crooks
Educational Instructional Technology
Texas Tech University, USA
steven.crooks@ttu.edu
Abstract: A mixed research method was used to investigate the reasons why students often keep
silence or have low motivation in online discussions. The findings of this study indicated that
college students’ interest level of discussion topics may be considered a significant predictor to
their motivation in asynchronous online discussions. Low interest level of topics decreases
students’ attention and reduce their motivation for online discussion. Likewise, a free and open
discussion environment can prompt students to more actively participate in online discussion and
express their true ideas.
Introduction
Asynchronous online discussion has been widely used in online courses to facilitate computer-mediated
communication (CMC) and generate student-to-student and student-to-instructor interactions. Although
asynchronous online discussion affords many benefits for online teaching and learning, limited student participation
in online discussions appears to be a persistent and widespread problem (e.g., Cheung & Hew, 2004; Hewitt, 2005).
Students tend to only post the minimum number of messages required, particularly if participation is voluntary (e.g.,
Fung, 2004; Hara, Bonk, & Angeli, 2000). Some students had been found to have never even participated in online
discussions during the whole semester (e.g., Cheung & Hew, 2004). Unless response from students was required,
students even did not seem to read other postings or respond to their peers (e.g., Benfield, 2000; Berge, 1995).
Online students appeared to have less learning motivation than students attending traditional face-to-face classes.
Brooks and Jeong (2006) found that students failed to communicate effectively due to a lack of motivation in online
discussions.
Several prior studies have investigated the factors which influence the quality of online discussions from
students’ perspectives (e.g., Du, 2008). However, few studies focused on the specific reasons why students keep
silence or have low motivation in online discussions from the students’ point of view. Therefore, the purpose of this
study is to delve into students’ perspectives and find out the reasons for low motivation in online discussion from
three aspects: students, teachers, and technology. The findings of this study shed light on the systematic design of
online discussions for online courses designers or teachers.
Research Methodology
Participants
There were 171 undergraduate students enrolled an online course entitled, “Computing and Information
Technology” during the semester. It is an introductory course to computers and technology. Online discussion was
an important learning activity in this course and was accounted for 10% of students’ final grades.
Procedure
During the semester, all students who were enrolled in the course were required to participate in five
asynchronous online discussions in Blackboard WebCT. Each discussion was related to one chapter in the course
and lasted a week. When discussions were finished, students were required to complete an online survey. The
survey included 24 multiple choice items and one open-ended question to allow students to write down any reasons
not mentioned in the survey. The survey includes three aspects such as students, teachers, and technology. Likert
scales were used in the survey to ask students to answer questions by choosing (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree,
(3) undecided, (4) agree, or (5) strongly agree. Finally, there were 135 students submitted the survey online. Six of
them did not answer all the questions. Therefore, the valid number of variables was 129. The reliability coefficient
of Cronbach's alpha for this survey is .88.
Results
The mean score for each survey item and each part of this survey was calculated as below.
Survey Items
Aspect of Students:
1. Students may haven't enough time to attend the online discussions.
2. The online discussions are not required in the online courses.
3. The online discussion assignments are not such important than other types of assignments such as...
4. Students may not have prior experiences of online discussions.
5. Students may not know how to construct a meaningful message for online discussions.
6. Students may have no interests in the discussion topics.
7. Online discussion does not fit with their learning styles.
8. Students may feel online discussion cannot enhance their learning in the online courses.
9. Students may be shy to express their own opinions.
10. Students may worry about what they post are not what the instructors expect.
Mean
3.46
3.02
2.76
3.34
3.59
3.38
3.92
3.36
3.61
3.71
3.91
Aspect of Teachers:
1. Online teachers may not provide clear guidelines for online discussions.
2. The discussion topics are not interesting enough to motivate students to discuss.
3. The discussion group is too big to improve interactions among group members.
4. Online teachers' more participation may lead to less participation from students in online discus...
5. Online discussions are allocated fewer credits than other assignments.
6. Students cannot be motivated to attend online discussions because online teachers do not particip...
7. Online teachers do not lead the online discussion very well.
3.12
3.33
3.41
2.97
2.79
3.44
3.10
2.80
Aspect of Technology:
1. The form of text-based and threaded online discussion in Blackboard is too...
2. Reading all the others' postings is not such easy in threaded online discussion in Blackboard.
3. It is hard to figure out who response my initial posts or response somebody's responses in thread...
4. Threaded online discussion cannot improve interactions among students.
5. Students may not know how to discuss in Blackboard.
6. Students may have more interests in audio-based or video-based online discussions, however, Black...
7. Students may have more interests in visual-spatial online discussions, however, Blackboard cannot...
3.12
3.31
3.20
2.85
2.89
3.18
3.22
3.22
Table 1: Mean scores for survey items
Discussion and Conclusion
Table 1 shows that students agree or strongly agree that the most possible reasons why some students keep
silence or have low motivation in online discussions are “students may have no interests in discussion topics” (M =
3.92) and “Students may worry about what they post are not what the instructors expect” (M = 3.91). Some other
highly possible reasons are “students may be shy to express their own opinions” (M = 3.71), “students may feel
online discussion cannot enhance their learning in the online courses” (M = 3.61), and “students may not have prior
experiences of online discussions” (M = 3.59).
The results of the open-ended question in this survey are consistent with what we found from the multiple
choice questions. Many students reported that the discussion topics are not such interesting may be the reason to
result in the low motivation in online discussions. For example, some students mentioned “It might because topics
aren't very interesting or they're just trying to get through the assignments” and “Most discussion topics are unlikely
to be interesting and elicit debate”. Another finding from the open-ended question is that many students like faceto-face communication more than asynchronous online discussions. Some statements are “I have never felt like
online discussions can take the place of classroom discussion. When I raise my hand and say something in class it
feels completely different than when I am assigned to create some contrived number of comments on a website” and
“Because we are humans and not robots, we like to communicate face to face”.
The findings of this study suggest that online teachers or online course designers should pay more attention
to design interesting discussion topics for online students. If the discussion topics are not such interesting, students
may feel boring and lose motivations to discuss. Moreover, the discussion topics also need to be very closely
connected to the course content and motivate students’ debating. Another suggestion is that a free and open
discussion environment should be build up to encourage all students to feel free to voice their opinions. Clear
discussion policies or guidelines can be designed to show students how important they attend the online discussion
and freely express their own opinions in online discussions. Online teachers may also think about using some other
types of online discussions, such as video-based online discussions, visual-spatial online discussions, and social
networking, to motivate more students’ discussion interests. These types of online discussion can convey more
social cues among students and make them feel much closer with each other.
The limitation of this study lies on the specific course. The survey data only came from the specific
participants who took the basic computer skill entry course. Future studies could validate the results of this study or
investigate more reasons why students keep silence or have low motivation in online discussions by collecting data
from more different online students.
References
Brooks, D., & Jeong, A. (2006). The effects of pre-structuring discussion threads on group interaction and group
performance in computer-supported collaborative argumentation. Distance Education, 27(3), 371-390.
Cheung, W. S. & Hew, K. F., (2004). Evaluating the extent of ill-structured problem solving process among preservice teachers in an asynchronous online discussion and reflection log learning environment. Journal of
Educational Computing Research, 30(3), 197-227.
Du, J., Zhang, K., Olinzock, A., & Adams, J. (2008). Graduate students' perspectives on the meaningful nature of
online discussions. JI. of Interactive Learning Research, 19(1), 21-36.
Fung, Y. Y. H. (2004). Collaborative online learning: Interaction patterns and limiting factors. Open Learning, 19(2),
135-149.
Hara, N., Bonk, C. J., & Angeli, C. (2000). Content analysis of online discussion in an applied educational
psychology course. Instructional Science, 28(2), 115-152.
Hewitt, J. (2005). Toward an understanding of how threads die in asynchronous computer conferences. Journal of
the Learning Sciences, 14(4), 567-589.