Factors influencing the success of computer mediated communication (CMC) environments in university teaching: a review and case study

Despite its potential benefits, the effectiveness of CMC when used to support learning in higher education is very variable, making it important to identify those factors which best predict successful implementations. A review of the literature from the past few years, presented in the first half of this paper, suggests that, consistent with Activity Theory (Leont'ev, 1978), the critical factors are those which provide a context and rationale for online communication by helping users to establish a shared purpose. However, generating empirical support for this hypothesis presents two kinds of methodological problem: specifying the methods and measures necessary to discern the existence and impact of shared purpose; and dealing with the difficulties of making controlled comparisons in this area. The second half of the paper illustrates, via an implementation case study, something of how these methodological problems might be resolved, and presents evidence in favour of the central importance of shared purpose

Reducing cultural barriers via Internet courses

A web-based learning environment has been developed to support students from China who are studying in the UK and are confronted by many cultural barriers, which may impede their academic studies.The electronic environment incorporates a number of approaches to support learning, ranging from a simple text-based presentation to more active methods, including opportunities to use search-based learning strategies. Experimental results demonstrate a clear advantage for these active approaches.Internet support was also provided for students in the form of an E-learning course for academic writing, which featured extensive opportunities for interactions with English peers. The experimental results demonstrated that the group with access to the E-course successfully acquired skills, resulting in their academic writing being indistinguishable from native English speakers

Extending Media Richness Theory: The Influence of a Shared Social Construction

Globalization has seen the emergence of virtual teams solving complex organisational problems using computer-mediated technologies. By extending Media Richness Theory, it was the aim of this research to demonstrate that virtual teams can utilise a lean medium, such as email, for effectively solving an equivocal problem, given that participants develop a shared-social construction. A quantitative study was carried out to measure the effects of a shared basis on perceptions of Media Richness, Group Cohesion and Decision-Making Effectiveness of participants engaged in group communication using only email to facilitate their discussions. There was found to be no significant effects of a shared basis on these variables, however, it was found that Media Richness and Group Cohesion have a mediating effect on Decision-Making Effectiveness. In addition to this, the scales used in data collection were, for what is believed to be the first time, exposed to confirmatory factor analysis

Stance-taking and social status on an online bulletin board: A qualitative and quantitative approach

In this study, I demonstrate that social hierarchy and power are important aspects for understanding the use of epistemic and evidential stance verbs in computer-mediated communication. The data for the study come from an online bulletin board about rhythmic gymnastics, where the construction of social roles is believed to play a role in the expression of stance. The members of the community are divided into three hierarchically distinct social ranks based on status and activity on the board. I investigate whether members of a higher rank use epistemic and evidential stance verbs in a more authoritative manner than members of lower ranks using two methodological frameworks. In the qualitative part of the study, I adopt the dialogical discourse analysis to argue that epistemic and evidential stance is a dialogically constructed phenomenon that locally emerges between conversational co-participants. The quantitative part of the study employs the multifactorial usage-feature analysis, where two stance verbs think and seem are coded for a range of formal, semantic and extra-linguistic factors, which are believed to contribute to the differentiation of authoritative and tentative stance. The results show that bulletin board users of a higher rank exhibit a more authoritative and even aggressive use of epistemic and evidential stance verbs than users of lower ranks

Cross-cultural validity of the “Classroom Motivational Climate Questionnaire”: comparison between French and Spanish students

The objective of this study was to obtain evidence about the cross-cultural validity of the “Classroom Motivational Climate Questionnaire” (CMCQ), developed recently for Secondary and High-School students. With this purpose, French and Spanish Secondary and High School students’ results were compared. A total of 749 French students formed the group to be compared with the original Spanish sample. To validate the CMCQ, confirmatory factor analyses, reliability and correlation and regression analyses were made. The results showed that CMCQ is a reliable and valid instrument to measure motivational climate in France as in Spain. It allows detecting which learning patterns can to be changed for improvement, and predicts to a large extent the satisfaction level with the teacher. Likewise it showed some existing differences between Spanish and French students in the motivational role attributed to some teacher’s strategies, differences whose theoretical and practical implications are discussed.El objetivo de este estudio es analizar la validez transcultural del “Cuestionario de Clima Motivacional de Clase” (CMCQ), desarrollado recientemente para alumnos de Secundaria y Bachillerato. Con este fin se han comparado los resultados de alumnos franceses y españoles de educación secundaria y bachillerato. Un total de 749 alumnos franceses se comparó con la muestra original española. Para validar el CMCQ se llevaron a cabo análisis factoriales confirmatorios y análisis de fiabilidad, correlación y regresión. Los resultados han demostrado que el CMCQ es un instrumento fiable y válido para medir el clima motivacional lo mismo en Francia que en España. Permite detectar qué patrones de enseñanza podemos cambiar si queremos mejorar, y predice en alto grado el nivel de satisfacción con el profesor. Asimismo, se han manifestado algunas diferencias existentes en el valor motivador que los alumnos atribuyen a algunas estrategias del profesor, diferencias cuyas implicaciones teóricas y prácticas se analizan.This work was carried out with funding from the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project EDU2012-37382)

The importance of socio-affective relationships in educational contexts: Validation of a closeness-conflict scale and a motivational communication scale

In studies on the motivational classroom climate -CMC- the need to delve into socio-affective aspects that make up the pedagogical relationships -PR- between teachers and students that affect the closeness and communication is recognized. That is why this work seeks to validate the design of two evaluation instruments focused on PR (Closeness/Conflict Scale and Motivational Communicational Scale) applied to 459 students from technical secondary schools (Argentina) and establish links with the CMC as well as with the satisfaction and interest achieved in terms of the relevance of school learning. The results found prove that the two assessment scales created meet measurement guarantees, showing encouraging reliability, internal, convergent and predictive validity data. Likewise, the relationships between the Motivational Communication and Closeness scales are strong since significant correlations were found. The relationship model between communication/closeness/conflict turned out to explain the satisfaction that students perceive of their teachers, demonstrating the importance of the main determinants of PR (closeness, communication and conflict) for the CMC and contributing to the evaluation of educational interventions focused on improving the climate

Developing and Validating Feedback and Coherence Measures in Computer-mediated Communication

Interpersonal persuasion is definitionally distinguished from broadcast persuasion by the presence of anticipated personal feedback and message coherence. Distinguishing interpersonal from broadcast messages in computer-mediated communication (CMC) may be an important individual tactic for avoiding information overload and filtering spam; however, we found no existing measures suitable for assessing these factors in CMC. This deficiency motivated the present study to develop and validate feedback and coherence questionnaire measures and conduct an initial test of the relevance of these measures to CMC. The measures met recommended criteria for content validity, construct validity, reliability, and predictive validity. In addition, the measures predicted most of the variance in social presence subjects perceived in our test messages and entirely mediated effects of whether the purported message sender was known or unknown to our subjects. These findings suggest feedback and coherence are important antecedents to persuasion in email, texting, instant messaging, and similar forms of CMC

Creating and Maintaining Social Presence via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring the Self-Rated Behaviors that Lead to Social Presence

This dissertation involved the creation and validation of a new measure of social presence. The first study involved the use of focus groups to create items for the future measure. The focus groups were presented with a set of items that were created based upon past literature; an through discussion of these items, a preliminary measure was created. The second study gathers data concerning the measure that was created from study one and an exploratory factor analysis was performed to eliminate items that did not work well with each other. This reduced the measure from 54 items to 23. The third study involved gathered data to perform a confirmatory factor analysis on the reduced measure from study two to 20 items. The confirmatory factor analysis, also provide construct validity for the measure. The end result of this dissertation is a valid and reliable measure of social presence that can be used to determine if a person has difficulty projecting him or herself as a real individual who is willing to interact with other online communicators

Similarities and differences in self-disclosure and friendship development between fact-to-face communication and Facebook

This research identified the patterns of self-disclosure between face-to-face and Facebook friends’ interactions. A survey of 317 participants was conducted to compare the hypothesized relationships among social attraction, self-disclosure, predictability and trust in three types of relationships: recently added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend, and an exclusive face-to-face friend. Data was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), t-tests and correlations. Results indicated that individuals reporting high levels of social attraction also reported having greater self-disclosure with their latest added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend and an exclusive face-to-face friend. This supports a theorem of Uncertainty Reduction Theory that states that persons disclose intimate information to individuals they like and withhold intimate information from persons whom they do not like. These individuals also reported greater predictability of their Facebook and face-to-face friends’ behavior, which supports axiom of Uncertainty Reduction Theory that as the amount of verbal communication between strangers increases, the level of uncertainty for each interactant in the relationship will decrease. The more friends talked to each other, the less uncertainty they experienced. Additional evidence that the relationship development across different friendship types (latest added Facebook friend, exclusive Facebook friend and exclusive face-to-face friend) is similar was the statistically significant relationship between the variables of self-disclosure and trust. This supports the tenets of Social Penetration Theory and previous studies that found self-disclosure to be important for the facilitation of developing mutual trust. The results of this study showed that the process of relationship development, in terms of the relationship between social attraction, self-disclosure, predictability and trust, were similar in both Facebook and face-to-face relationships. However, significant differences existed in the amount of self-disclosure and trust between Facebook friends and face-to-face friends. Although the average duration of both exclusive face-to-face friendships and exclusive Facebook friendships was six years, participants reported more self-disclosure, more predictability and trust in their face-to-face friends than with their Facebook friends. The findings about offline friendships involving more breadth and depth than online friendships seem to support “cues-filtered-out” approach

Making Sense of the History of Information Systems Research 1975-1999: A View of Highly Cited Papers

In this paper, I analyze the history of IS research through the lens of 409 highly cited papers (i.e., papers with at least 100 Reuters Thompson Web of Science citations) pub­lished between 1975 and 1999. I focus on 1) what these highly cited papers are, 2) what they study, 3) who their authors are, and 4) where they were published