Many problems faced by professionals in fields such as business, law, medicine, and public administration are ill-structured. Students in these domains need to learn to address such situations using complex problem solving. Case study assignments are often used to enable students to learn how to use course concepts to define problems, identify causes and design solutions. To simulate the experience of a professional facing a complex situation, instructors rely upon a discussion of a case study. However, there are many challenges in conducting such discussions in an online course using a discussion forum.
The discussion forum is commonly used as a vehicle in online classes for assessing learning. In a traditional online discussion, students are provided a topic, some questions, or a set of readings. They are asked to respond to the topic, questions or readings, and the views, positions, responses of other students. The purpose is to allow students to demonstrate what they have learned. On the other hand, a less common use of a discussion forum is to learn via collaboration and apply that learning to solve ill-structured problems. In the current study, our research question was: how does online discussion forum format influence student learning?
We based our study on the availability heuristic from cognitive psychology. It shows that individuals rely on information that is easily accessible to make decisions instead of engaging in elaborate information search. Based on this framework, we posited that online discussion forums that have more structure have a greater impact on student learning and application of knowledge on a case study as compared to unstructured discussion forums.
We used two different formats for online discussions in one graduate class (32 students) and three sections of an undergraduate class (with about 100 students) dealing with information systems management. We measured student scores on case essays and obtained their responses to anonymous surveys.
In our initial analysis based on student scores, we found a tendency for superior learning in structured versus unstructured discussion forums. Responses to the surveys indicated that structured discussion was better aligned with performance and learning whereas unstructured data enabled easier participation.
Discussion forums may be used as a vehicle to learn concepts and apply that learning in a specific context. Our study shows that there is a trade-off between the benefits of structured versus unstructured discussions. Emphasizing too much of one over the other may be detrimental to learning.