The Structure and Substance of Student Asynchronous Communication in Hybrid STEM Courses

Hybrid learning usually incorporate online learning activities since face-to-face class time has been reduces significantly. One of the major challenges in hybrid course is to maintain the same level of student-to-student and student to-instructor interaction as in traditional classes. Various strategies, which include online discussion, online journals, online tutorial, etc., have been developed to engage students and improve the interaction. Online discussion is one of the common strategies. Online discussion relies on asynchronous communication, where participants communicate by posting messages to the bulletin board system such as Blackboard Discussions. Asynchronous communication has the potential to make collaboration efforts more rewarding and productive for students by enabling them to communicate at any time and from any networked location. The focus of this ongoing study is to explore changes in students' level of high-order thinking and knowledge construction in asynchronous threaded discussions, the emergence of communication patterns and structures in the asynchronous communication network, and relationships between role centrality and concept centrality in student discourse. It will employ content analysis and social network analysis to pursue its research foci.