Beyond students' perceptions: Investigating learning ...

Draft provided only for reference – Cite this article as: Jimoyiannis, A., & Tsiotakis, P. (2017). Beyond students’ perceptions: Investigating learning presence in a community of educational blogging. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, 9(1), 129-146.

Beyond students’ perceptions: Investigating learning presence in a community of educational blogging Abstract Purpose - This paper presents an integrated framework for designing and investigating students’ engagement patterns and learning presence in educational blogs. The framework was grounded in the ideas of self-directed and reflective learning, and was applied to analyse students’ blogging activities in the context of an undergraduate course. Design/methodology/approach – The proposed research framework was organised along three dimensions: content artefacts, blogging processes and community building. With regards to the methodological tools used, this study integrates Content Analysis of students’ posts using the framework of Community of Inquiry (CoI), the representation of Learning Mapping and Social Network Analysis methods. Findings - The results revealed important information about the different ways of students’ engagement and learning presence within the blogging groups, the contribution and the influence each student had, as well as the structure and the cohesion of the learning community developed around the blogging project. Research limitations/implications - The findings of this study are limited by the blended course features, the specific sample and the context of implementation. Future research needs to consider and analyse students’ lurking or invisible presence in educational blogging communities. Practical implications – This study has yielded promising results with regard to the design of educational blogs in higher education that aim to enhance students’ engagement, reflection, collaboration and selfdirected learning. Originality/value - The originality concerns the proposed conceptual framework which can guide the design, monitoring and analysis of blogging processes in order to reveal students’ learning presence within selfdirected communities of blogging. Keywords: educational blogging, learning presence, integrated analysis framework, reflective learning, selfdirected learning Article Classification: Research paper

1. Introduction The emergent Web-based technologies challenge educational organizations, around the globe, to consider new opportunities and ways of delivering education programs. In the last years, e-learning is becoming more widespread in higher education while new models of pedagogy and new forms of learning appear to be popular among educators and administrators (Becta, 2008; Salmon, Jones and Armellini, 2008). The increasing interest about the new generation of e-learning, known as e-learning 2.0 (Downes, 2005), is determined by the core features of Web 2.0 applications which transform learning by providing multiple opportunities for shared content and resources, self-directed and reflective learning, collaborative and ubiquitous learning (Jimoyiannis et al., 2013; McLoughlin and Lee, 2010; Tess, 2013). Among Web 2.0 tools, blogs have received a growing interest of both educators and researchers. During the last years, a wide range of educational blogging initiatives were studied and reported in primary (Tse et al., 2010; Yeo and Lee, 2014) and secondary education (Jimoyiannis and Angelaina, 2012), vocational education (Marsden and Piggot-Irvine, 2012), higher education (Kerawalla et al.,


2009; Paulus and Spence, 2010; Tan et al., 2010; Chang and Chang, 2014) and teacher professional development (He et al., 2012; Luehmann and Tinelli, 2008). With regards to the pedagogical perspective, blogs were used in higher education to promote reflective and self-directed learning. Existing research findings have shown that educational blogging provides enhanced opportunities to the students to achieve deeper understanding and knowledge construction through sharing resources, expressing and exchanging ideas, critical and reflective thinking, interaction, group work and collaboration in a networked community of learning (Farmer et al., 2008; Philip and Nicholls, 2009; Top, 2012; Xie, Ke and Sharma, 2008; Yang, 2009). Literature reviews on current empirical investigations have suggested that educational blogging, especially at the higher education level, is an open research topic. There is a need to determine a consistent theoretical and research framework in order to investigate students’ engagement and find new ways to integrate educational blogging into the existing institutional and learning contexts. This study has the ambition to contribute by describing and searching an operational framework that could help to conceptualize the educational value of blogs and guide the design, implementation and research on educational blogging. By extending previous research findings (Jimoyiannis and Angelaina, 2012), the present framework articulates that learning in educational blogging is a result of reflection and collaboration among active participants in a community of blogging. The empirical results, in the context of an undergraduate course, revealed significant information about students’ patterns of engagement and individuals’ learning presence in blogging activities, the influence each student had to others as well as the structure of the learning community which was evolving within the blog.

2. Theoretical background and literature review Educational blogs are currently gaining popularity in higher education institutions as collaborative learning environments (Chang and Chang, 2014; Deng and Yuen, 2011; Kerawalla et al., 2009; Philip and Nicholls, 2009; Tan et al., 2010), because of their user-friendly format and the features incorporated, like publication, dialogue, archiving, linking to resources, and tagline descriptions. There are two main types of individual contributions in an educational blog, typically arranged in reverse chronological order: a) content entries (articles), which include content information in combined format (e.g., text, visual, video, links to websites), and b) commentaries, i.e. posts which contain comments and responses to previous peer contributions. Due to their organizational features, educational blogs are deemed a) to improve students’ authoring and communications skills, and b) to construct dynamic learning environments that promote expression and exchange of ideas, critical and reflective thinking, resources sharing, collaborative and self-directed learning (Angelaina and Jimoyiannis, 2011; Baxter, Connolly and Stansfield, 2010; Deng and Yuen, 2011; Robertson, 2011). Reflective thinking is the key concept in educational blogging, rooted in Dewey’s ideas about learning (Dewey, 1933). Reflection is a way of thinking about learning


which helps individual learners to understand what, how, and why they learn. In social learning environments, self-regulated learning is also regarded important (Zimmerman, 2008). Therefore, reflection in blogging is an active, persistent and constructive process through which learners interact with others and critically assess the content, the processes and the outcomes of their learning. Two types of reflective thinking are generally expected to emerge in a blog: a) Reflection on peer contributions: This is a mental process, a form of thinking, which helps learners to assess peer ideas and be challenged by them in order to achieve an anticipated outcome, to improve their thinking skills and, finally, to promote social construction of knowledge (Hatzipanagos and Warburton, 2009). It is claimed that learners, through reflective actions in the blog, are able to exchange ideas and insights by reading and commenting on peer posts; therefore, learners’ interactive and intellectual activities are expected to build a sense of community among participants (Top, 2012; Tang and Lam 2014). b) Self-reflection: This aspect of reflective thinking helps students to monitor and assess their own learning presence and progression within the blogging community and, in addition, to take the responsibility for their learning (Hourigan and Murray, 2010; Robertson, 2011). In the last decade, educational blogs have become an important research topic. They appeared to serve in practice as an on-line course management tool (Kang, Bonk and Kim, 2011), a discussion forum (Yang, 2009; Deng and Yuen, 2011), an e-portfolio (Dippold, 2009; Farmer et al., 2008), a group blogging space (Philip and Nicholls, 2009) and a project-based learning environment (Jimoyiannis and Angelaina, 2012). However, in practice, most educational applications of blogs harness more than one of the above mentioned aspects. Educational blogs have been documented to have positive impact to students’ learning in a wide range of topics, like language learning (Dippold, 2009; Hourigan and Murray, 2010), foreign language acquisition (Sun, 2010), health science (Tan, Ladyshewsky and Gardner, 2010), computer science (Chang and Chang, 2014), pre-service (Deng and Yuen, 2011; Wopereis et al., 2010) and in-service teacher education (Halic et al., 2010; Hramiak et al., 2009), and teacher professional development (He et al., 2012; Goktas and Demirel, 2011). In addition, literature review suggested a growing research interest about educational blogging, in the context of open and collaborative learning. The majority of the published results have been descriptive in nature, and they were mainly directed towards three research dimensions as following. 2.1 Students’ perceptions of educational blogging Students’ perceptions and experiences of using blogs as educational tools is the most investigated topic. Findings collectively showed students’ positive attitudes toward blogging and analysed the difficulties they encounter during blogging activities (Deng and Yuen, 2012; Marsden and Piggot-Irvine, 2012; Sun, 2010). Learners in these studies generally reported a positive experience about using blogs and they believed that blogging enhanced their understanding of the course as well as their reflective thinking and collaborative learning (Halic et al., 2010; Kang et al., 2011). Top (2012) showed that the pre-service teachers, which were engaged in blogging in an undergraduate course, had positive feelings about


collaborative learning and the overall learning outcomes. In addition, Goktas and Demirel (2011) showed that blogging had a positive impact on technology competencies perceived by prospective teachers. 2.2. Pedagogical design of educational blogs Limited research has been reported in relation to pedagogical design issues and the implementation of educational blogs with the aim to support reflective and self-directed learning. In addition, even less studies provided guidelines and strategies to integrate blogging into instruction, considering the advantages, challenges, difficulties and the support needed from the instructor’s perspective. For example, in the context of two blended courses in a Korean university, Kang, Bonk and Kim (2011) used blogs for class assignments, journal entries and reflections in order to extend discussion and foster collaboration among students. Their analysis concluded that the combination of reflection, interaction, and personal expression determine the pedagogical features of blogs as powerful learning tools in practice. Tang and Lam (2014) investigated the use of blogging, in the form of teaching portfolios to provide a reflective, collaborative and dialogic environment for academic and professional development among students, inservice teachers, and faculty staff members. Recently, Shao and Crook (2015) explored the use of a mobile group blog to assist learning in second language learning. 2.3 Students’ engagement in educational blogging In the last years, some studies have been directed to the analysis of students’ individual and collaborative contributions in educational blogs by using quantitative or qualitative data related to both, user actions and the content published (Deng and Yuen, 2011). Chang and Chang (2014) implemented a content analysis on students’ interaction and reflection data, extracted from comments rather than the main entries in educational blogs, in a hybrid course about “Programming for Web-based Applications”. Social Network Analysis was also used to reveal patterns of individual students’ contribution and the structure of the community developed within group blogs, in an undergraduate course (Jimoyiannis, Tsiotakis and Roussinos, 2013). 2.4. Scope of the study and research questions In response to the analysis above, there is a need for further investigating and understanding the dynamics of social interaction among students and learning within a community which is expected to be built around an educational blog. This study was designed to explore, through the lens of an on-line community of learning, the different forms of learning presence exhibited by the students, their connections and social interaction as well as the dynamics of the whole blogging project. The notion of learning presence was used, according to the approach of Shea and Bidjerano (2012), as an indicator of self-regulated learning within a community of inquiry built around students’ group blogs. The ultimate objective of this study was to apply and evaluate a new conceptual and analysis framework about blogging communities. Therefore, the following research questions were addressed:


  

Can we achieve a consistent and mutually interrelated view of educational blogging activities along individual, group and course levels? Can we depict an operational structure of the blogging community? Can we identify different student roles? Who were active or peripheral members? Can we test and evaluate the applicability of the proposed framework in analysing students’ engagement patterns in educational blogging?

3. Conceptual and analysis framework Responding to the need for a more rigorous and systematic analysis of students’ learning presence in educational blogging, we propose in this paper a consistent conceptual and research framework, organised along three dimensions:  Content artefact: The content created in the blog is the outcome of students’ contributions in the form of entry articles and commentaries.  Blogging processes: Student interaction and cognitive patterns in the blog aiming to promote learning through discourse, peer feedback and reflection.  Community: Common practices and ties developed among students within the blogging community. Another assumption underpinning the present work is, respectively, the adoption of a three-fold schema for learning design and research in educational blogging:  Personal level: Analysis of personal performance and learning presence in the blog, in terms of content contributions and interaction with other students.  Group level: Analysis of group performance and development in relation to content information flow, evolution of the topics and interaction forms within group blogs.  Course-level: Students’ engagement, contribution and roles undertaken within the blog community to support reflective dialogue, collaborative and social construction of knowledge. Community

Cohesion Collaboration Content co-creation Collective intelligence

Supporting Discourse Group reflection Blogging activities

Cognitive presence Content artifacts Exchanging ideas Content sharing

Reflection Blogging processes

Figure 1. Conceptual framework of a blogging community


Figure 1 depicts the components which determine the conceptual framework for designing, implementing and analysing students’ contributions through the lens of online learning community. The proposed framework is based on a wider notion that investigations in online learning environments need to be triangulated, in order to increase the credibility and validity of the results and to make definitive statements about processes, effects or outcomes of learning (Cohen and Manion, 2010). With regards to the analysis tools used, this framework integrates Content Analysis with Learning Mapping representation and Social Network Analysis (SNA) methods. The analysis schema is expected to shed light into the different patterns of individual contributions, the evolution of students’ learning presence with regard to reflective dialogue, student connections, subgroups developed and student roles within the community, which promote collaboration and social construction of knowledge. 3.1. Descriptive and content analysis Any individual contribution (student article or comment) was considered as the unit of analysis. Considering that educational blogs are interactive spaces where learners are engaging in purposeful discourse and reflection to construct personal meaning and confirm mutual understanding, the content of blog can be analysed by using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) coding scheme (Garrison and Arbaugh, 2007; Angelaina and Jimoyiannis, 2011). The CoI model assumes that learning occurs within a community of inquiry, which is defined by three constitutional elements, i.e. the social presence, the teaching presence and the cognitive presence of the participants in the blog. 3.2. Blogging maps A blogging map elaborates a part of or the complete blogging activity by using regular concept-mapping representations. Since educational blogs are evolving artefacts, the content can be integrated through a map which offers an overview of a topic and its overall meaning, the contributions of each student, and the interconnections among students’ ideas. The notion of blogging map is rooted in the idea of learning maps which was originally proposed by Kinchin, Hay and Adams (2000) as a technique to represent a sequence of learning actions exhibited by the students in specific learning activities and the relations among them. Angelaina and Jimoyiannis (2012) adapted the learning mapping schema in the context of educational blogging and used it in combination with CoI model to analyse secondary education students’ engagement and learning presence in a blogging community. 3.3. Social Network Analysis Social Network Analysis formulas have been effectively used to reveal patterns of interaction among students and to describe social relations that determine knowledge construction processes in on-line learning environments (Jimoyiannis and Angelaina, 2012; Shea et al., 2010). According to SNA a blogging community


can be represented as a network. Individual students are represented as nodes and the interconnections among members are denoted as links. SNA provides a set of algorithms that measure and quantify social and cognitive interaction among members, the amount of communication (and the information exchanged), the different student roles, member groups, power or influence of individuals etc., in terms of network structure parameters like cohesion, power and role analysis, which encode certain networking forces within the blog. Moreover, multiple SNA graphs can depict the structure of the social relations, the information trajectories as well as the overall blog operation as a community of learning.

4. Research framework 4.1. Context The group blogs analysed in this paper were designed and implemented as an obligatory project in the context of an undergraduate course entitled ‘Internet Services and Applications’, at the Department of Social and Educational Policy, University of Peloponnese, in Greece. In total, 48 students (8 male and 40 female) were enrolled in the course; they were randomly assigned into 10 groups of 4-5 members. All participants were familiar with using computers and Web applications; however, they had no previous experience with educational blogs. The group blogs were hosted on a WordPress multi-blogging server. One student per group blog was assigned as administrator. The instructor was not directly involved in students’ blogging activities. He was acting as facilitator by leaving students free to undertake initiatives and responsibilities. In addition, he encouraged them to interact with other group members and conceive blogging as both, a personal and social activity within the course community. 4.2. Design of the blogging project The participants were asked to collaboratively create their group blog with appropriate and valuable content to inform classmates and other youngsters about ‘Internet Safety’. Students’ activities and the developmental process of the educational blogs were designed as a long-term project, structured into five phases: preparation, introduction, exploration, integration and conclusion. Table 1 presents in detail the workflow which included classroom and computer laboratory sessions as well as on-line individual, reflective and group work (information seeking, suggested on-line resources, peer communication, exchanging ideas and content sharing). The students were individually responsible for their group blog; they were asked to contribute, on a regular basis, by writing entry articles of 300-400 words and reflecting upon peer contributions through commenting, criticizing, expressing alternative opinions, expanding ideas and themes on their group blog. In addition, they were asked to contribute to the other group blogs with critical comments. Guidelines were also given to avoid plagiarism. 4.3. Data extraction and research ethics


Complete content texts of individual student contributions (articles and commentaries) were extracted from the group blogs. Data analysed concern the exploration and integration phases of blogging, lasted for 6 weeks (Table 1). Two researchers worked independently to code and assign the blog postings into CoI categories and the consequent indicators. Fictitious student names were used; Sij, i=group number (1-10) and j= group student number (1-5), T refers to the course tutor. The students were informed and assured that a) their posts would be transcribed, b) individual student identities would not be used in the analysis, c) the presentation of results will not contain any student identification, and d) the analysis would have no impact on their grades. Table 1. Workflow of the blogging project Project phase Preparation Face-to-face Meeting (starting day) Introduction Individualized Work (1 week) Exploration Group Interaction (2 weeks)

Integration

Activities  Introduction to the blog-based project  Face to Face (FtF) classroom discussion  Specification of learning goals, dates and time frames, modes of individual and collaborative work  Discussion on the subject under study: “Internet safety”  Students’ familiarization with blogs  Students’ familiarization with WordPress platform  Structure and template design, interface modifications      

Community operation (4 weeks)

Conclusion Whole class Closing FtF meeting

    

Project work (FtF sessions and group blogging)  Brainstorming, exchanging ideas  Responsibilities and modes of blogging Information seeking and evaluation Technical and structural modifications of the group blogs Exploration and on-line work in the blog  Publishing the first articles and posting comments  Exchanging content information and Web resources Students’ project work (within the blogging community) Students’ reflection  Uploading articles and commentaries  Sharing content information and Web resources  Exchanging and connecting ideas  Peer reviewing and feedback  Summary and integration Instructor’s support and scaffolding (FtF and on-line) Group presentations Project outcomes and evaluation Discussion and conclusions about Internet safety Project closing

5. Results 5.1. Descriptive and content analysis In total, 1214 publications were uploaded on the group blogs. They included 200 articles, 15 group pages (not accessible by non-group members) and 999 comment posts. Of the latter, 472 were coming from group members and 527 from non-group members. In addition, most articles were enriched with links to external sources, graphics and embedded videos (mostly from YouTube). The


majority of the groups had effectively organised their blog content by defining article categories and tags. Table 2 presents the analysis of students’ contributions using indicators of the Community of Inquiry model. Group blogs G4, G5 and G8 were selected as representative examples of the main forms of participation and learning presence used by the students in this study. A significant number of publications were attributed to the category of social presence. They did not include content information; they projected students’ expressions similar to that used in face-toface discussions which promote group cohesion and enhance dialogue. Table 2. Analysis of students’ contributions using Community of Inquiry Elements

Indicators Open communication Emotional expression

Social Presence

Teaching Presence

G8

74 22

44 1

15 1

31

18

5

127

63

21

Triggering

39

26

Exploration Integration

60 18

19 20

12 14

117

65

32

Design and organization

35

8

7

Facilitating discourse Direct instruction

7 13

1 1

0 0

55 299

10 138

60

Group cohesion

Cognitive Presence

G4

Publications G5

Total posts

6

7

Cognitive presence included a great number of publications (entries and commentaries), which constitute the main body of students’ learning presence within the particular group blogs. Blogging activities, like content and resources sharing, triggering new topics, promoting dialogue, critical analysis and synthesis of ideas, were the main indicators of students’ cognitive presence. The posts attributed to the category of teaching presence were relatively fewer in groups G5 and G8. In the case of group G4, however, 55 publications were assigned as teaching presence postings. An interesting finding is that the great majority of these posts were not originated from the instructor but they reflected comments regarding blog design, literature exploration, content organisation and guidelines among students’ in group G4. Overall, G4 group blog was a participative and interactive environment, which promoted students’ active engagement, collaboration and reflection at a high level. This blog included a significant number of articles (24) and 4 group pages. In addition, there was recorded a mean value of 9.7 comments per article. The majority of comments (198) were coming from group members while 73 posts were uploaded by classmates in other groups. Students’ activity in group blog G5 produced 21 group articles and 3 group pages, which received 114 comments (mean value 4.8 comments per article). Comment


posts were divided among members; 58 were coming from G5 group members and 56 from non-group members. This is a strong indicator that G5 blog was operating as a connection-interactive space among classmates. On the other hand, in blog G8 a different form of participation was recorded. Group members published only 10 entry articles which received no internal comment. This indicates a low level of visible interaction and collaboration among group members. However, the blog topics appeared to be interesting for many students in other groups, which uploaded 50 posts with reflective comments. 5.2. Topic analysis Following, we present two cases of blog topics analysed using in combination the CoI framework and the Blogging Mapping schema. These cases are indicative examples of blogging patterns which emerged along the project evolution timeline. The elaboration of students’ ideas through dialogue and meaningful integration in the various topics are indicators of collective knowledge construction within group blogging. Case 1: Exploration phase Blog extraction in Figure 2 included 14 posts; an entry article about ‘Internet addiction' by student S5-5 and 13 comments. It is a spoke-chain structure representing the evolution of students’ debate around this theme. Two branches were created. The first is a chain of posts, starting by the initial article from student S5-5 and continually evolving, through supportive posts and ideas interchanging among group members and student S5-5, with the aim to improve content in this topic. The second branch depicts peer feedback, from students in other groups, containing new ideas, information sources and evaluation comments. Table 3 classifies the sequence of student posts in this topic and the corresponding CoI categories. S5-5

1

S5-2

8 9

2 S5-5 3 S5-4

13

7 11

S6-4

12

10 S7-5

S4-5 S8-1

S9-2

S9-4 S4-1

4 S5-5 5 S5-4 6 S5-5

Figure 2. Spoke-chain structure


Table 3. Topic posts and CoI categories Post order

Student

CoI category

0

S5-5

1

S5-2

Entry article Cognitive/triggering Social/group cohesion

2

S5-5

Cognitive/triggering

3

S5-4

Cognitive/exploration

4

S5-5

Cognitive/exploration, new knowledge

5

S5-4


6

S5-5

Social/group cohesion

7

S4-5

Social/emotional expression , Cognitive/integration

8

S8-1

Social/group cohesion, Cognitive/exploration

9

S9-2

Social/group cohesion, Cognitive/integration

10

S4-1

Cognitive/integration

11

S9-4


12

S7-5

Cognitive/exploration, new knowledge

13

S6-4

Social/ emotional expression, group cohesion

Case 2: Integration phase Figure 3 presents a tree structure of a topic including 11 posts; an entry article about ‘Internet safety' by S8-2 and 10 comments from classmates in the other groups. The main topic was evolving along four mutually interrelated subtopics. They represent students’ cognitive approach to this theme though comments, different views and peer evaluation, which contributed to the expansion of ideas and the overall improvement of the initial article (Table 4).

S8-2 1

3

8 6

S6-4 2

S6-3 S4-52 4

S7-4

S9-4

5

9 S4-2 7

S1-3 10

S7-5

S5-5

Figure 3. Tree structure of blog topic

S7-3


Table 4. Topic posts and CoI categories Post order

Student

CoI category Entry article Cognitive/triggering

0

S8-2

1

S6-4


2

S7-4


3

S4-5


4

S9-4


5

S5-5


6

S4-2


7

S7-5


8

S6-3


9

S1-3


10

S7-3


5.3. Cohesion analysis Cohesion analysis reveals the architecture of the blog network and the quality of students’ interrelations within the blogging community, with regards to specific SNA parameters, like existence of subgroups (cliques), members in each clique, and the cohesion index, which represents the level of interaction among members in a clique (Jimoyiannis and Angelaina, 2012). In total, 199 cliques were identified. This reflects the wide range of interaction among the students which is, consequently, related to the knowledge construction expected to appear within the blog community. Table 5 shows the results of the cohesion analysis performed on the course blogs, which concern 37 cliques including more than 10 students. A clique is not an isolated group of students. It is quite clear from Table 5 that the various cliques were formed from students in different working groups. In addition, many active students were members in a variety of cliques. Students S41, S5-4 and S9-4 were the most active participants, since they were present in all the 37 cliques (Table 5). They were leading discussion and challenged with their postings other students to contribute to the various blog topics. In addition, students S1-3, S5-5, S7-5, S8-3, S9-2, S10-2 and S10-3 were also active and good mediators. They had a key role in the blog network, since they were connected with other classmates and promoted discussions among peers. The number of participants in each clique determines the scope of interaction among students. There are 8 cliques with eleven (11) members and 29 cliques having ten (10) members therein, thus indicating a high level of interaction among students in these subgroups. In overall, the results indicated that the whole blogging community was a highly cohesive network.


Table 5. Cohesion analysis parameters Cliques

Members

Clique1 Clique2 Clique3 Clique4 Clique5 Clique6 Clique7 Clique8 Clique9 Clique10 Clique11 Clique12 Clique13 Clique14 Clique15 Clique16 Clique17 Clique18 Clique19 Clique20 Clique21 Clique22 Clique23 Clique24 Clique25 Clique26 Clique27 Clique28 Clique29 Clique30 Clique31 Clique32 Clique33 Clique34 Clique35 Clique36 Clique37

S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S10-3,S7-5,S5-3,S3-4,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S10-3,S7-5,S5-3,S3-4,S1-3 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S10-3,S7-5,S5-3,S10-1,S1-3 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S10-3,S7-5,S2-5,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S10-3,S7-5,S2-5,S1-3 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S10-3,S7-5,S6-3,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S10-3,S7-5,S6-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S6-1,S7-5,S1-3,S3-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S6-1,S7-5,S1-3,S2-5 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S6-1,S7-5,S1-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-3,S6-1,S7-5,S6-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S10-3,S5-3,S1-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S10-3,S5-3,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S10-3,S6-3,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S10-3,S6-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S10-3,S2-5,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S10-3,S2-5,S1-3 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S6-1,S1-3,S2-5 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S6-1,S1-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S9-2,S8-2,S7-5,S6-1,S6-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S1-2,S1-3,S5-3,S10-3,S8-3,S3-4 S4-1,S9-4,S5-5,S5-4,S1-2,S7-4,S10-3,S8-3,S3-4,S5-3 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-3,S7-5,S1-3,S5-3,S3-4 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-3,S7-5,S1-3,S5-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-3,S7-5,S1-3,S2-5 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-3,S7-5,S6-3,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-3,S7-5,S6-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-3,S7-5,S7-4,S5-3,S3-4 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-3,S7-5,S7-4,S2-5 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-2,S7-5,S5-3,S1-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-2,S7-5,S5-3,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-2,S7-5,S6-3,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-2,S7-5,S6-3,S10-1 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-2,S7-5,S2-5,S7-4 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S9-2,S10-3,S8-2,S7-5,S2-5,S1-3 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S1-2,S5-3,S1-3,S10-3,S8-3,S3-4 S4-1,S9-4,S10-2,S5-4,S1-2,S5-3,S7-4,S10-3,S8-3,S3-4

Cohesion index 3,070 2,854 2,983 2,816 2,620 2,917 2,899 2,678 2,678 2,800 2,970 3,052 3,025 2,988 2,970 2,882 2,678 2,737 2,865 3,043 2,784 3,006 2,854 2,983 2,620 2,917 2,899 3,070 2,816 3,052 3,025 2,988 2,970 2,882 2,678 2,784 3,006

5.4. Power analysis Power analysis algorithms measure the network activity and reveal valuable information towards understanding the operation of each group blog and the whole blogging community. Degree centrality depicts the extent to which an individual has direct connections to other students and, therefore, assesses which members were central with respect to spreading information and influencing others in the blog. Figure 4 presents the degree centrality map of blogging activity in group G5, which is a characteristic example of a highly cohesive network. The main features of students’ contributions to this group blog can be outlined as following:  The majority of the students attending the course (31) were active participants and contributed to this blog with comments.








Group members S5-4, S5-5, S5-3 and S5-2 were the leaders of blogging activities; as expected, they were the most powerful and visible members in their group blog. A significant number of students coming from other groups (external members) were good responders acting as connectors to other participants. Students S4-1, S9-4, S1-3 and S10-3 were the best responders by connecting others and spreading information. On the other hand, 17 students were classified as lurkers in this particular group blog; they had no visible connection with comments to peer contributions.

Figure 4. Degree centrality map (group G5)

Figure 5. Degree centrality map


Figure 5 represents the degree centrality map of the course blogging community. Student S4-1, placed at the centre of the graph, was the most powerful member (highest degree centrality). Students S9-4, S2-5, S1-3, and S3-4 are placed close to the centre, since they also had many connections to others. Therefore, they were the most powerful, popular, and visible members in the community. As moving to the periphery, students’ blogging activity was decreasing; the marginal members are placed close to the external cycle of the graph. 5.5. Role analysis Role analysis identifies classes of community members (called role groups) which exhibited certain social roles in the blogging network, on the basis of relations and power distribution among them. Two individuals in a class are equivalent in the sense that they can replace each other as far as their roles in the blog network. Hierarchical clustering of the role equivalence matrix provided the role analysis graph shown in Figure 6. Six role groups were defined according to students’ participation and learning presence in the blogging activities. Student S4-1 was the leader of the whole blog community. The subject participated in 37 cliques and uploaded the highest number of posts, thus triggering other classmates to contribute. In addition, he received many responses from other students and he had enhanced interconnection with peers in other blog groups.

A D

C

E

B

Figure 6. Role analysis graph


Group A includes students S10-3, S9-2, S7-5, S10-2, S5-4, S9-4 and S5-5. They were the most active participants in the blog since they contributed with many articles and posts containing questions, comments or alternative opinions. Most of them were members in a great number of community cliques; for example, students S54 and S9-4 were participants in 37 cliques (Table 5). Role group B included five moderately active participants, namely the students S13, S8-3¸ S3-4, S2-5, S1-5, who were members in many cliques (ranging from 9 to 22). Role group C, opposed to groups A and B, consisted of 14 members: S4-2, S1-4, S74, S9-3, S10-5, S6-4, S7-3, S10-1, S5-3, S5-2, S6-1, S8-2¸ S6-3 and S1-2. The instructor is also placed therein. Compared to the active members in groups A and B, most of the members in group C exhibited lower contribution to the community activities and had lower influence to the blog network. However students S6-1, S82¸ S6-3 and S1-2 which are projected near to group B participated in many cliques (ranging from 4 to 10 cliques). Role group D is consisted of 9 students, namely S1-1, S4-4, S4-5, S8-4, S7-1, S8-1, S8-5, S9-1 and S10-4, which had a limited participation in the blog activities. They uploaded few commentaries and they did not appear as members in any clique. Finally, role group E is projected in the left side of the graph. It included 12 students, S2-1, S2-2, S2-3, S2-4, S3-1, S3-2, S3-3, S4-3, S5-1, S6-2, S6-5 and S7-2, which had extremely marginal presence in the blog. Some of them could be characterized as lurkers or isolates, since they were not members in any clique while their participation was restricted to reading posts of the other classmates.

6. Discussion and conclusions In this paper we provided an integrated framework to monitor and analyse important aspects of students’ learning presence in educational blogging. We also suggested that expanding regular descriptive or explanatory analysis, by investigating the active roles of learners, may contribute to a more thorough understanding of knowledge construction in participative environments, like, educational blogs. With regards to the methodological perspective, this analysis was addressing along three mutually related levels, i.e. personal, group and course. The proposed three-dimensional framework, which integrates content analysis of students’ posts using CoI, learning mapping representation of blog topics and Social Network Analysis of individual student contributions, enhanced our knowledge with regards to individual students’ engagement and learning presence in the blogging activities. The analysis revealed valuable information about students’ participation patterns, how the particular blog topics were evolving, the structure and the cohesion of the blogging groups, the student groups developed within the blog network, the information flow and the influence each participant had within the blog community. Overall, the results indicated a decentralized learning community, which was not addressed by the tutor but was evolving by the initiatives of the active students. Our findings are in line with other studies (Kang, Bonk and Kim, 2011; Tang and Lam, 2014) ), which have shown that students’ active engagement


in educational blogs forms a community of practice, where both students and the instructor can experience multi-dimensional interactions and decentralized relationships, and transforms learning to a more meaningful and sustainable process. Therefore, the research findings provided supportive evidence with regards to the value and the applicability of the proposed framework in the analysis of students’ learning presence in educational blogs. By harnessing multiple source data to analyse students’ learning presence, we were able to depict the architecture of a self-directed community, which was continually evolving around common interest blog topics emerging through students’ regular postings of ideas, thoughts and views, exploring and sharing information, dialogue and reflective thinking. 6.1. Implications for practice The results of this study provided supportive evidence that properly designed educational blogs can help students to achieve higher cognitive levels through enhancing their communication and collaboration skills, and their critical thinking within a supportive community of inquiry. The findings could ambitiously be of value for both educators and instructional designers in higher education towards creating and delivering efficient on-line learning environments. A unique feature of properly designed educational blogs is that they enable individual reflection, peer interaction, self-direction, authoring and ideas integration. In other words, educational blogs offer enhanced opportunities to the students to reflect on both, the content to be learnt and the learning process. Therefore, the process of blogging is eventually transformed to an artefact, which is the outcome of students’ creativity, reflection and content transformation. It is hoped that the conceptual framework can also aid instructors to adopt an open learning philosophy when they design educational blogs in order to enhance students’ engagement, reflection, collaboration and self-directed learning. The proposed framework could also assist instructors to track students’ engagement patterns, to maintain students’ motivation alive, and to dynamically define realistic learning goals and their scaffolding actions to support students’ reflection and self-direction. 6.2. Future directions The findings of this study may not be generalizable to other contexts and types of educational blogging, since they are limited by the design features, the context of implementation and the specific sample. However, the present study has the ambition to serve as background for further research and empirical testing that could corroborate the validity of the proposed analysis framework. A systematic research is required to determine why higher education students do regularly participate or not in educational blogging activities, i.e. the extent to which individuals’ decisions are driven by their cognitive needs, learning habits, selfdirected goals, tutor’s role and supportive actions, the wider educational context, the subject under study or other related factors that influence students’ learning and the effectiveness of educational blogging in practice. It is interesting to note that many participants in this study, in order to justify their low engagement rates, reported that they did not visit the blog on a regular basis,


because they had the opportunity to interact with peers during face-to-face course sessions. The blended format of the course is also a major issue for further research. It seems that it was not effective to foster all the students towards perceiving the blog as an emergent learning space, which is the result of on-line individual contribution and group/collaborative work. Another important theme, with respect to students’ learning presence in on-line learning environments, is lurking (Preece, Nonnecke and Andrews, 2004). Despite that lurkers and salient students were not visible through the blog, it is quite reasonable to expect higher rates of attending others’ ideas, opinions, questions and insights. We argue, therefore, that lurking is a kind of invisible presence and needs to be further considered and analysed though the lens of pedagogical lurking suggested by Arnold and Paulus (2010). 6.3. Conclusion In conclusion, this investigation provided a critical insight into various aspects of students’ learning presence in reflective and supportive communities of educational blogging. Critical understanding of the complexity of educational blogging is expected to enhance the related pedagogical knowledge for research and educational practice. The proposed framework could guide the design, implementation and analysis of blog-based interventions aiming to support students’ reflective, self-directed and collaborative learning.

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