In online courses, opportunities for student engagement need to be deliberately designed (Martin & Bolliger, 2018). One common way to promote student engagement online is through discussion forums, for which there are widespread established best practices. However, the Q&A discussion forum, which is typically not graded or required, is often thrown into a course without clear intentions or structure. When purposefully designed, a Q&A forum can facilitate the crucial engagement types that are essential to building a community of inquiry in an online classroom, ultimately improving student satisfaction and learning outcomes. These engagement types are student-content, student-student, and student-instructor (Bernard et al., 2009 as cited in Martin & Bolliger, 2018). A Q&A forum should incorporate best practices around all three engagement types.
By posing and answering content-related questions to a Q&A forum, participating students can engage more deeply with the course content. It is therefore important to model the types of questions that could benefit the learners.
One way to increase student-student engagement is by fostering a learning community. According to Haythornwaite (2002), three types of student-student communication contribute to building a learning community: content-related, task planning (e.g. coordinate joint efforts, review drafts), and social support (e.g. offer advice, provide support for challenges) (as cited in Hrastinski, 2008). Q&A forums provide opportunities for all three of these communication types. Therefore, students should be given instructions in the Q&A forum which encourage these interactions.
Additionally, instructor presence and participation play a crucial role in Q&A forums, promoting student-instructor engagement. According to Garrison & Cleveland-Innes (2005), “...teaching presence [and not interaction by itself] contributes to the adoption of a deep approach to learning” (p. 140). Furthermore, the instructor acts as a moderator to ensure that information shared in the forum is accurate and timely. Without this moderation, students might lose faith in the forum and be less inclined to use it (Cheng, Liu, & Shieh, 2012). As is the case with any course discussion, the smaller the class size, the greater the impact of instructor participation on students’ likelihood to contribute (Parks-Stamm, Zafonte, & Palenque, 2017).
Finally, the practical benefits of a Q&A forum are notable. Instructors can answer multiple students at once, and the forum can provide a space for the types of casual interactions that might otherwise take place in the hallways, before and after class.
Here are some ways you can try to provide structure and increase student engagement in Q&A discussion forums:
- Make the Q&A forum more easily locatable by linking it in multiple places throughout the course, and/or bring it to students’ attention by describing it in the course syllabus, welcome message, or introduction.
- Introduce the Q&A forum in ways that promote its benefits: community and shared knowledge forming, efficient information sharing, and deeper learning.
- Devise an extra credit policy based on student participation in the forum. In particular, encourage students to answer each other’s questions, but establish criteria that award credit only for substantive and correct contributions.
- Use a third-party tool for Q&A such as Yellowdig or Piazza to gamify the forum experience.
- Encourage students to share external resources with each other that they have found to be helpful.
- Establish clear expectations for contributing and responding to questions in the forum, including modeling
- Encourage active instructor participation in the forum to clarify questions and drive conversation.
References
Cercone, K. (2008). Characteristics of adult learners with implications for online learning design. AACE Journal, 16(2), 137-159.
Cheng, S., Liu, E., & Shieh, R.S. (2012). Identifying the indicators attracting users to online question and answer discussion forums. Social Behavior and Personality, 40(2), 283-292.
Garrison, D.R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005). Facilitating cognitive presence in online learning: Interaction is not enough. The American Journal of Distance Education, 19(3), 133-148.
Hrastinski, S. (2008). Asynchronous & synchronous e-learning. Educause Quarterly, 51-55.
Martin, F. & Bolliger, D.U. (2018). Engagement matters: Student perceptions on the importance of engagement strategies in the online learning environment. Online Learning 22(1), 205-222.
Parks, Stamm, E.J., Zafonte, & M., Palenque, S. (2017). The effects of instructor participation and class size on student participation in an online discussion forum. British Journal of Educational Technology, 48(6), 1250-1259.