Anchoring for Self-Efficacy and Success

In recent years, we have observed a rising interest in studying the effects of Web 2.0 technologies on student learning. We learned that human behavior can be influenced by personal and environmental factors as in Bandura's concept of "reciprocal causation." For business statistics students, we implemented online discussions to extend student involvement beyond the walls of the classroom to help students succeed. We chose business statistics primarily because many students have struggled in it. Students also had difficulty navigating through the standard online discussions. Moreover, their participation was mainly made out of compliance. We implemented anchored discussions to help with the navigation issue. We decided to examine the effects of the two forms of online discussions. We were not sure of the impact on students' self-efficacy and success. Our results from conducting the two studies show that anchored asynchronous online discussions are more likely to help increase students' self-efficacy. Moreover, students using the anchored discussions obtained statistically significant higher exam scores than students using standard discussions.