The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service science teachers&rsquo / (PST) quality of written argumentations about socio-scientific issues in an online discussion environment in relation to their epistemic beliefs and argumentativeness. A total of 30 pre-service elementary science teachers who will teach elementary school science from 6th through 8th grade students after graduation voluntarily participated in this study. The sample was chosen by purposive and convenience sampling from the PSTs registered for the course named &ldquo / Science, Technology, and Society&rdquo / in the fall semester of 2009-2010 academic year at a public university in Ankara. In this study, the PSTs participated in an online discussion environment in which climate change, nuclear power, genetically modified foods, and human genome project issues were discussed for a total of four week period. The major data of this study were collected through the Epistemic Beliefs Questionnaire developed by Kuhn, Cheney and Weinstock (2000) and the Argumentativeness Scale by Infante and Rancer (1982). For the analysis of the quality of argumentations, an adapted version of Sadler and Fowler&rsquo / s (2006) argumentation analysis framework was employed. The results of the study illustrated that the PSTs frequently generated high quality argumentations for each socio-scientific issue which was interpreted as a positive indication that the online discussion environment was effective in promoting students&rsquo / argumentation. In addition, the results also showed that argumentation quality levels varied across socio-scientific issues. Another result of this study was that the PSTs&rsquo / argumentation qualities were higher for multiplist and evaluativist levels. Finally, the correlation results between argumentativeness and argumentation quality levels did not reveal a significant correlation between these variables. However, there was a significant correlation between epistemic belief levels and argumentativeness.

An electronic advice network provides employees opportunities to tap diverse experts within the organization at an unprecedented speed and scale. It is formed when an advice seeker initiates an online discussion thread joined by members of various communities, each specializing in a specific domain. This dissertation recognizes the substantial gap in our understanding of how to best harness the performance potential of expertise diversity provided through an electronic advice network within a firm. It thus investigates the process by and conditions under which expertise diversity in an electronic advice network promotes the advice seeker’s learning and performance. A field study was conducted via multi-methods including observation, interviews, and survey at a global company running discussion forums spanning internal virtual communities. The unit of analysis was at the discussion thread level. 190 discussion threads comprising 1,200 participants and associated outcomes (rated by their respective advice seekers) were analyzed. Findings suggest that, for the seeker to realize the performance potential of diverse inputs, discussion participants should facilitate the seeker’s learning by engaging in collective elaboration—articulating the differences and relevance of their diverse inputs. The seeker learned and performed the least when discussion participants were highly diverse but did not engage in collective elaboration. Discussion participants engaged in collective elaboration to the extent that they had previously established shared syntactic and semantic understanding of each other’s expertise domains through participation in each other’s communities. This dissertation contributes to the virtual communities literature by unearthing the relationships between expertise diversity and the advice seeker’s learning and performance and explaining when and how the seeker benefits from the diverse knowledge shared through an electronic advice network. The moderating role of collective elaboration explains why prior research may have found no or even a negative relationship between expertise diversity and discussion outcomes. It also contributes to the team literature by offering boundary conditions for the previous findings on expertise diversity and common ground. The collective elaboration construct can be also adopted by team diversity researchers to better understand where a disruption in the chain of group-level information processing may occur in some diverse teams. / text

Emerging online discussions in a Weibo (micro-blogging) platform argue for the new possibility of online deliberation in Chinese cyberspace. In order to ascertain the extent to which this platform is being used, the author has conducted a case study to measure the quality of deliberation of an online discussion of genetically modified (GM) foods in the comment section of posts written by Mr. Cui and Mr. Fang on Tencent Weibo. In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the data, both methods of Discourse Quality Index (DQI) and interview have been used. The findings of the research indicate that the online discussion fails to meet two necessary criteria of deliberation: rational and logical statements and consensus building. However, the study results are not totally negative, since the levels of interaction, information exchange, mutual understanding and neutral expression are relatively high. According to the author, in the contemporary stage, online authoritarian deliberation faces many problems in the PRC. At micro level, first, online expression is irrational and illogical; second, it is hard to reach consensus building; third, participants are stubborn to their pre-given wills; forth, some people are indifferent to online discussions. At macro level, first, most of the online discussions have low external impact on decision-making; second, the strong government control may hinder the development of online deliberation.

This study first tests the factors influencing the willingness to express opinions online. Guided by the spiral of silence theory, the research used a survey to test whether fear of isolation and opinion congruency work online. Second, the study explores how psychological constructs, including self-efficacy, collective efficacy, and proxy efficacy affect the willingness to express disagreement. A 2 × 2, verbal persuasion × vicarious experience, experiment was applied. Third, this study also conducted a content analysis to measure disagreement expressions in online newspapers and test how these expressions affect opinion quality and online discussion involvement. The survey study (N=321) showed that while fear of isolation online negatively predicts the willingness to express individual opinions, opinion climate congruency is not associated with the willingness. The online experiment demonstrated that mastery experience and verbal persuasion positively influence self-efficacy, but vicarious experience's effect was not confirmed. Self-efficacy plays the most salient role in predicting whether one selects to express disagreement online. The content analysis (N=1,288) of the discussion threads demonstrated that disagreement expression is widespread in the online newspaper forums analyzed, and such expression positively influences reasoned opinions and political discussion engagement.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-12-21T11:35:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 julianadecarvalhobarros.pdf: 3333465 bytes, checksum: fbd466824c16806069877c31ee83b81a (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-12-22T12:40:39Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 julianadecarvalhobarros.pdf: 3333465 bytes, checksum: fbd466824c16806069877c31ee83b81a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-22T12:40:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 julianadecarvalhobarros.pdf: 3333465 bytes, checksum: fbd466824c16806069877c31ee83b81a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Este trabalho visa investigar a atuação de uma tutora no fórum de discussão no contexto de ensino a distância. Mais especificamente, seu objetivo é identificar e analisar, por meio das práticas discursivas da tutora, estratégias que possam contribuir para a promoção da aprendizagem colaborativa no fórum de discussão. Embora a literatura saliente a importância dessa contribuição, existem poucos trabalhos que apresentam à tutores/professores subsídios práticos que contribuam para sua atuação nos fóruns de discussão. O trabalho está ancorado nas postulações de Vygotsky sobre o desenvolvimento e a aprendizagem, teorias precursoras das reflexões sobre a aprendizagem colaborativa. A aprendizagem colaborativa foi considerada, no presente trabalho, a partir de sua mediação pelo computador centrando-se nos seguintes teóricos: Silva (2006), Pallof & Pratt (2002), Tijiboy et ali (2009), os quais entendem que a construção do conhecimento se dá de forma conjunta e colaborativa. Teorias sobre a argumentação, focando principalmente as marcas argumentativas propostas por Koch (1984, 1997), as situações argumentativas colaborativas de Damianovic (2009), e as postulações sobre a argumentação de Ducrot (1987) foram também adotadas. O contexto da pesquisa é uma disciplina do curso de graduação em Pedagogia a distância da Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora através da Universidade Aberta do Brasil (UAB). O corpus de análise constitui-se das práticas discursivas da tutora em 6 fóruns de discussão realizados na disciplina investigada. Os resultados desse estudo apontam estratégias que podem favorecer a aprendizagem colaborativa nos fóruns de discussão, oferecendo, assim, subsídios teóricos e práticos que orientam a atuação dos professores e/ou tutores nos fóruns de discussão. Apontam-se também contribuições teórico-metodológicas que dizem respeito ao uso da argumentação para os estudos sobre a promoção da aprendizagem colaborativa mediada pelo computador. / This thesis aims at investigating the practices of a tutor in an online discussion forum for distance education. Specifically, it aims at identifying and analyzing through the tutor’s discursive practices, pedagogical strategies that may add to the development of collaborative learning in the discussion forum. Even though the literature emphasizes the importance of this contribution, there are few studies that present both tutors and professors with practical examples that guide their performance in virtual learning environment. On theorethical grounds, the work discusses Vygotsky´s notions on the development of Cognition and Learning, which are a precursor to the idea of collaborative learning. In this work, we focus on collaborative learning supported by the computer, highlighting the reflections of the following experts: Silva (2006), Pallof & Pratt (2002), Tijiboy et ali (2009), who understand that knowledge construction is accomplished by interaction. Besides, a review and a discussion of Argumentation Theory is carried out, focusing the argumentative marks proposed by Koch (1984, 1997), Damianovic’s (2009) collaborative argumentative situations, and Ducrot’s (1987) postulations on argumentation. The context of this research is an online discipline of the Pedagogy distance graduation course of Federal University of Juiz de Fora, through Universidade Aberta do Brasil (UAB) project. The corpus of analysis is the tutor’s discursive practices in six discussion foruns. The results of this study point out strategies that may encourage collaborative learning in online discussion forums, providing theoretical and practical support that guide professors and tutors’ performance in the online environment. This study also presents theoretical and methodological contributions to the use of argumentation in studies on collaborative learning supported by the computer.

The thesis HateFree Culture: The importance of agonistic dialogue in mitigating Islamophobia is a case study of the Czech government's campaign against hate crime - HateFree Culture. The thesis deals with the current phenomenon of Islamophobia and identifies how the HateFree Culture initiative works with the topic of Islam in an attempt to alleviate Islamophobic manifestations in society. It examines the extent to which the primary tool of this campaign, a moderated Facebook discussion, can affect Islamophobic expressions and identifies the link between this discussion and deliberative forums. The thesis shows that the various techniques used in the project can positively influence the way in which the topic is discussed and can thus progressively lead to a reduction in the manifestations of Islamophobia in society. This process is discussed in relation to the theory of deliberative democracy. However, it also concerns the theory of agonistic pluralism and an agonistic dialogue. The thesis finds that the aim of the project is promoting the knowledge of Islam and Muslims that could lead to a better mutual understanding, but also to the cultivation of a conflict that is related to the topic in order to transform its character into a less harmful one. HateFree Culture is thus shown as an agonistic...

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<p>This dissertation consists of three interrelated articles about supporting instructors to develop their facilitation skills both on the instructional and emotional sides during online case-based discussions. In the first study, we examined the influence of instructors with varying levels of experience on student participation and interaction in online case discussions. Findings showed that while both expert and novice instructors utilized facilitation strategies in clusters to facilitate discussions, the novice instructor displayed less flexibility as a facilitator, and these differences impacted student activeness. Our second study explored experts’ teaching practices, such as structuring, facilitating, and assessing online case discussions, and the reasons behind their decisions. We found that the experts clustered strategies during online case discussions while maintaining differences in how they implemented them. There was practical guidance provided for novice instructors that could be adapted to meet their own needs. Using a learning experience design lens, the last paper conceptually discussed opportunities for facilitating students’ emotions during online case discussions and offered suggestions that instructors can incorporate into the planning, implementation, and evaluation phases.</p>

Online Communities of Practices (CoPs) is emerging as a major form for knowledge sharing in this era of information revolution. Due to the advancement of technology and ease of internet access in every part of the world, people began to get more and more involved in online CoPs to share knowledge. The defining characteristic of a Community of Practice is the interaction between members in order to jointly determine and embrace goals, eventually resulting in shared practices. Crucial to the success of a Community of Practice is the engagement between community members. Without engagement, a Community of Practice can not share knowledge and achieve its negotiated goals. To that end, there is a need to examine, why do people engage in an online discussion, what role domain experts play to keep on-line discussion alive and how to develop a ''right intervention'' to maintain and stimulate participants for engagement in on-line community. This thesis studied eight Communities of Practices that are being deliberately formed to facilitate knowledge sharing in the online community and describes an exploratory study of knowledge sharing within Communities of Practices (CoPs) by investigating eight CoPs ¿Start up Nation, All nurses, Young Enterpener, Teneric, SCM Focus, Systems Dynamics, Mahjoob and Alnj3 CoPs. The CoPs under investigation shared the following characteristics: permanent life span, created by interested members (i.e. bottom-up rather than top-down management creation), have a high level of boundary crossing, have more than 700 members who come from disparate locations and organizations, have voluntary membership enrollment, high membership diversity, high topic¿s relevance to members, high degree of reliance on technology, and are moderated. Data were gathered on the eight CoPs through online observations and online questionnaire survey. Results show that in each of the case study the most common type of activity performed by members of each CoP was sharing knowledge, followed by socialsing. Regarding the types of knowledge shared, the most common one across all CoPs was practical and general knowledge. The types of practical knowledge, however, varied in each CoP. The study also discovered that storytelling extensively enhances knowledge transfer and participants¿ interpersonal communications in eight communities under investigation. What were also notable in this study were the stories discussed in a CoP remains in the archive, what are more likely to generate interest and curiosity on the topic among inactive members who ultimately facilitates knowledge transfer. In this study it is also evident that successful topics with successful conclusion (in terms that the original query was answered) will not necessary get high responses and vice versa. An analysis of selected topics in the eight case studies has shown that some successful topics have few replies and vice versa, where many topics ended with open conclusion or they were unsuccessful in terms that the original query was not answered satisfactory. Therefore, it is not necessary that successful topic will get high number of responses as there are some successful topics which have limited number of replies. Overall, it is found that, topic may play a major role in the success of online discussion. It is observed in the study that members normally use short messages rather long messages and usually discusses more than one topic within one thread. Practical implications for knowledge sharing in online communities of practice were discussed, along with some recommendations for future research.

Although previous research has been conducted on the differences between online and face-toace discussions in the classroom setting, this previous body of research has not focused on the effect the inclusion of an online component of discussion can have on the creation of academic identity. Using qualitative and quantitative data, this research uses three student surveys and three instructor surveys and measures the use of first person pronouns and active and passive voice by students on online discussion boards in order to draw conclusions about the students’ and instructor’s perceptions about the impact online discussion boards have on the creation of academic identity. Similar to previous studies, quantitative data showed no significant difference; however, conclusions drawn from the qualitative data collected suggest that both the students and the instructor participating in the survey perceive that online discussion boards have a positive impact on the creation of academic identity.