Developing a Meso-Viewpoint Discussion System to Promote Online Learning Performance

The key issues that develop asynchronous online discussion systems to assist digital learning are how to help learners grasp their discussion themes and get different perspectives from peers to construct new knowledge more effectively and in depth. This research thus compares the differences in discussion effectiveness in terms of overall, complexity and multiple perspective among three asynchronous online discussion systems with different designed viewpoints and characteristics, including the micro-, macro-, and meso-viewpoint instant feedback systems. This research adopted the true experimental research method to examine the research questions. A total of 78 university students in Taiwan who participated in the experiment were randomly assigned to three groups assisted by three different types of asynchronous online discussion system for online discussion. The results confirm that the learners who used the meso-viewpoint instant feedback system had significantly better discussion effectiveness than those who used the other two systems because it simultaneously offers the useful features of the micro- and macro-viewpoint instant feedback systems.