Building the SCAFFOLD for evaluating threaded discussion forum activity: describing and categorizing contributions

As asynchronous learning networks mature, a demand has been placed on incorporating "presence" and interaction in the online learning experience. The threaded discussion forum is a promising asynchronous tool for promoting the desired student and faculty interaction essential to fostering a collaborative community of learners. Although the threaded discussion forum is widely used to support a variety of course requirements, the instructor is faced with the difficulty of interpreting and evaluating the learning and quality of participation reflected in the student contributions. A considerable discussion in the literature is ongoing on the theoretical foundation for discourse analysis of discussion forum activity. There have also been a number of attempts to develop rubrics for evaluating that activity. Unfortunately, many of the rubrics have little or no grounding in discourse analysis theory, and those that are conceptually sound are either too cumbersome for a professor to use or have not been tested for reliability and validity. The presentation will describe SCAFFOLD - scale for forums/online discussion assessment. The authors describe the SCAFFOLD instrument as a tool for categorizing and describing contributions. The process for establishing reliability and validity is detailed.