Carried out three cycles of action research in context of an online activity, Asynchronous Discussion board.

1. THREE ACTION RESEARCH CYCLES:
REASONS ENCOURAGE OR INHIBIT
ASYNCHRONOUS ONLINE DISCUSSION
PARTICIPATION
LING SIEW WOEI1*,
KOO AH CHOO2,
LIM YAN PENG3
123MULTIMEDIA UNIVERSITY, FACULTY
OF CREATIVE MULTIMEDIA, 63000
CYBERJAYA, MALAYSIA

2. Who I am.
lecturer at a private university in
Malaysia
conducted lectures larger classes of
200 students
Learning Management Systems (LMS)

3. Asynchronous Online Discussion AOD)
can promote critical thinking at higher
education (Chiu, 2009).
nurtures critical thinking mind
because it is an added-value that will
benefit them in the workplace
(Duangjan, 2014).

4. Issue
Emphasis of extrinsic motivation
Evidence
Lecturers worried participation would be low if
none was rewarded (Graham & Scarborough,
2001).
3 to 5%,
increased to 10%
20% (Graham & Scarborough, 2001; Nandi, Hamilton, Chang & Balbo,
2012).

5. Pondering : What if reward was removed?
Graham and Scarborough
(2001) addressed reported
that some students were not
even affected with the
marks thus made no
endeavour to participate at
all.

6. Intrinsic value
Spitzer (1996, p. 45) believed that motivation
“should be viewed as a central element of the
instruction itself. The truth is that no matter
how excellent any instructional program is,
learning will be no greater than the student’s
level of motivation”.
Deci and Ryan (1999) reward, especially mark
can be damaging to a student self-willingness.
Husen and Postlethwaite (1994) learners who
are intrinsically motivated, but rewarded
extrinsically has devalued their intrinsic
interest in reading

7. Aim
seeks some understanding of the reasons
that has encouraged or inhibited our
students to participate in an AOD as a
learning activity.
Graham and Scarborough (2001), using
marks to reward participation may not be
interest them.

8. Research methodology
open-source online discussion
software, Simple Machines Forum
(SMF).
supplement the traditional lecture
classroom with 2-hours of lectures, 2-
hours of hands-on activities.

9. Instrument

10. Cyclical process
Action Research (AR)
Spiral by Middlewood,
Coleman and Lumby
(1999)
three aspects of self-determination
dimension; structural,
monitoring and
involvement (Shroff &
Vogel, 2009)

11. Respondents
Purposeful sampling (n=198)
35 respondents in 2008,
29 respondents in 2009
134 respondents in 2010.
Share commonality of area of study,
age group and computer literacy.

12. Structural
Dimension
Learning
environment
and foundation
will be set down
to
encourage the
students to take
part.

13. Autonomy
Dimension
Students will be
encouraged to
take charge of
the
environment.

14. Involvement
Dimension
Students will
feel related and
cared within the
environment.

15. Structural
Dimension
Learning
environment
and foundation
were set down
to
encourage the
students to take
part.

16. Factors encouraged participation: Structural

17. Reasons inhibited participation: Structural

18. Autonomy
Dimension
Students will be
encouraged to
take charge of
the
environment.

19. Factors encouraged participation: Autonomy

20. Reasons inhibited participation: Autonomy

21. Involvement
Dimension
Students will
feel related and
cared within the
environment.

22. Factors encouraged participation: Involvment

23. Reasons inhibited participation: Involment

24. Reflection
What have I observed from the
experience and what does the data
tells from the years.

25. Factors that encouraged and inhibited online
participation from 2008 to 2010

26. Cycles provided rich data of respondents
Revealed attitude and behavioural
reasons such as busy and low
confidence that prevented them from
participating.
Study in Autonomy dimension has
revealed that some participants who
had forgotten their account have
participated in the AOD using their
friends’ account.

27. Learning Motivation
To provide extrinsic with
caution,
To begin with intrinsic,
To boost with intrinsic,
To rescue with extrinsic.

28. Inhibiting factors beyond motivation
attitude, behaviour, choice, time, content
and learning environment. Each of these
factors addressed the motivation dimension
highlighted by Shroff and Vogel (2009).
Marks was only one of the minor reward
busy schedule and priority in other courses
Students who perceived they will gain
benefit from the activity contributed in hope
to gain in knowledge and information. Some
students who liked to share their knowledge
would also participate in the AOD.

29. Participatory Action Research
may not be suitable to be adopted in this
research context. The justification was PAR put
equal responsibilities on both the participants and
researcher because they contemplate the students
as an expert due to their experience in the context
of the study (Khanlou & Peter, 2005).
Students as moderators failed
Lack of skills and experience although
knowledgeable
Gained jealous and others remain quiet
throughout the activity.

30. Summary
marks does not ensure participation on AOD.
contributing factor that had encouraged
participation was the mainly due to their
intrinsic reason of knowing the benefit and
value of the task.
attitude, behaviour, choice, time, content and
learning environment are some inhibiting
factors.
highlight the benefits and caution factors to
students

31. Concluding Action Research
Longitudinal
study
Action learning
Case study
About us
Reflective
Passionate