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Development of reasoning skillsthrough participation in collaborativesynchronous online discussionsIl-Hee Kima

a Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, EducationalStudies, 2101 E. Coliseum Blvd., Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USAPublished online: 31 May 2012.

To cite this article: Il-Hee Kim (2014) Development of reasoning skills through participation incollaborative synchronous online discussions, Interactive Learning Environments, 22:4, 467-484,DOI: 10.1080/10494820.2012.680970

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2012.680970

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Development of reasoning skills through participation in collaborative

synchronous online discussions

Il-Hee Kim*

Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, Educational Studies, 2101 E. Coliseum Blvd.,Fort Wayne, IN 46805, USA

(Received 8 June 2011; final version received 1 March 2012)

This article investigates the effect of participation in synchronous online dis-cussions on the development of individual reasoning as manifested in reflectiveessays. Students from a fourth-grade classroom engaged in a series of real-time online discussions. The format of the discussion was based on the Colla-borative Reasoning approach which has clear guidelines and procedures. Theresults showed that compared to the students from the contrast classroom, thestudents who had experienced synchronous online discussions wrote essays withmore satisfactory arguments, counterarguments, rebuttals, and textual informa-tion. In addition, they wrote longer essays which contained fewer irrelevantstatements. These effects of online discussions were consistent between girls andboys and between shy and non-shy children. The students’ uses of arguments andrebuttals, as well as the length of their essays, were adequately predicted by thefrequency of their contributions in the discussions. The present study suggeststhat when an online chat is implemented with an instructional approach whichhas well-established procedures and effective moves, it can provide anintellectually stimulating context in which all students can learn to reason byinteracting with one another.

Keywords: synchronous online; discussion; reflective essay

Introduction

Previous research has suggested that text-based online communication can be usefulfor facilitating group discussions and argumentation (e.g. Hara, Bonk, & Angeli,2000; Weinberger, Stegmann, & Fischer, 2010). A majority of research on text-basedonline communication has dealt with discussions in asynchronous communicationmodes, such as e-mails, computer conferencing, and threaded/non-threadeddiscussion boards (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005). In contrast, fewer studieshave been conducted on discussions in synchronous communication modes, thoughthe interest has been growing in distinctive features of synchronous communication.As most K-12 schools are now equipped with high-speed internet connection, onlinediscussions in a synchronous communication mode need to be studied as aninstructional tool to promote interaction and argumentation.

*Email: kimi@ipfw.edu

� 2012 Taylor & Francis

Interactive Learning Environments, 2014Vol. 22, No. 4, 467–484, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2012.680970

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The primary purpose of the study is to investigate the effect of participation insynchronous online discussions on the development of individual reasoning, asexpressed in reflective essays. Synchronous online communication has severalfeatures which may be conducive to collaborative discussions and argumentation.Compared to emails and online bulletin boards, text-based synchronous commu-nication, or online chat, features immediate feedback or response, and in that sense,it is regarded as ‘interactive written discourse’ (Ferrara, Brunner, & Whittemore,1991). Immediacy of feedback is important for development of reasoning and criticalthinking, because questions or challenges to the arguments can be raised quickly andaddressed, and misunderstandings can be clarified (Murphy & Collins, 1998).Discussants can provide immediate counterarguments or rebuttals without losing thecontext. In addition, a teacher or moderator can quickly create a move to managethe discussion; for example, the teacher can promptly remind students of the maintopic when they are digressing. This feature of immediacy and interactivity in text-based synchronous communication enhances a sense of social presence (Kehrwald,2008), which means ‘‘the feeling that others are involved in the communicationprocess’’ (Whiteman, 2002, p. 6). Although discussants sit alone in front of thecomputer without being able to see others’ faces on the screen, they may not feelisolated. The immediacy and interactivity helps discussants be aware that there arepeople on the other side of the computer screen and that they are engaged in a socialencounter with those real ‘physical’ people (McLellan, 1999). This sense of socialpresence can build a collaborative atmosphere among discussants and enhanceinvolvement in group decision making. This feature of online real-time conversationsmay also add to the excitement of interacting with others and make a discussion amore intrinsically rewarding activity. With this characteristic, synchronous commu-nication may increase participation and engagement among discussants.

Another positive characteristic of synchronous online communication is thatdiscussants can express their thoughts without being interrupted by others. Duringonline discussions, each utterance is displayed on the screen chronologically, withoutbeing overlapped as in face-to-face debates. This feature enables discussants topresent their arguments approximately at the same time. Accordingly, insynchronous online communication, discussants can be exposed to widely divergentpoints of views on the issue under consideration. Observing diverse opinions andvoices may broaden students’ own thinking and promote development of reasoning(Bakhtin, 1986).

However, one of challenges of text-based online communication is that turn-taking cannot be easily controlled because there are no observable cues signaling thatsomeone wants to enter the conversation (Murphy & Collins, 1998). Since eachutterance is simply displayed in the chronological order in which it is received by thecommunication system, ‘‘disparate strands of conversations can be juxtaposed,forming sequences that intertwine to form a multidimensional text’’ (Werry, 1996, p.51). In synchronous online communication, utterances are continuously added in afast tempo and thus there is a greater chance of separate conversations intertwining.Although the multiple intertwined threads of discussions may cause confusion, it hasbeen noted that discussants typically become accustomed to the nonlinear flow ofconversations rather quickly (Day & Batson, 1995) or adapt to the complex structureof conversational sequences by employing conventions or protocols such asaddressing intended conversational partners by name (Greenfield & Subrahmanyam,2003; Murphy & Collins, 1998). Another challenge in synchronous communication is

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that substantial typing skills are required for a participant to communicateeffectively. Specifically, students who are not proficient in keyboarding may find ithard to compose and post responses in time, as the text messages continuously scrollup the screen (Aoki, 1995). The rapid interaction may also lead participants to payless attention to writing accuracy in communicating meaning (Sotillo, 2000) and tendto respond quickly without much thoughtful reflection on a given topic.

Despite these challenges, most empirical studies support that text-basedsynchronous online communication can be effectively used for promoting reasonedargumentation (e. g. Weinberger et al., 2010). While a few studies reportedinstances in which students’ online discussions degenerated into off-topic banterand casual chats (Cox, Carr, & Hall, 2004) and students did not show muchacademic gain from online discussions (Schultz, 2003), the majority of researchpointed out that with clear learning objectives and teachers’ effective facilitation,synchronous online discussions can enhance students’ reasoning skills. Forexample, Chou (2001) noted that when a set of discussion guidelines wereprovided to students, the quality of synchronous discussions greatly improved andstudents exhibited deeper processing of thinking. With respect to teachers’instructional moves, Wang (2005) reported that carefully raised questions ledstudents to share multiple perspectives and engage in higher order thinking duringonline chats. Walker (2004) also indicated that when teachers challenged theirstudents’ positions, this significantly increased adolescents’ rejustification of theirarguments and attempts to improve the quality of their discussions. Pilkington andWalker (2003a) found that when the students were asked to assume variousfacilitating roles, they managed online discussions by themselves and showedimprovement in overall coherence and depth of their discussions.

Another purpose of the present study is to investigate whether the effect ofparticipation in online discussions is consistent between girls and boys and betweenshy and non-shy students. With regard to gender differences, previous studies haveshown that females are less disadvantaged in online discussions than in face-to-facesettings (Flores, 1990). During synchronous online debates, gender differencestended to disappear in initiating and responding to arguments (Davidson-Shivers,Morris, & Sriwongkol, 2003). Studies on elementary school children indicated that inonline contexts girls contributed more than boys, though they made fewerdisagreements than boys (Prinsen, Volman, & Terwel, 2007). Shy and quiet studentswere observed to contribute more in text-based synchronous online conversationsthan in regular classroom discussions (Warschauer, 1996). The absence of visual andauditory cues in text-based online communication may reduce shy children’sexperiences of negative or inhibitory feedback cues from others (Stritzke, Nguyen, &Durkin, 2004), and thus help them feel less inhibited in putting forth counter-arguments and alternative ideas to an issue. However, Sutherland-Smith (2002)reported that shy students still tended to remain silent during online discussions.

The format of online discussion in this study is based on the CollaborativeReasoning approach, which intends to promote children’s development of reasoning(Jadallah et al., 2011; Nguyen-Jahiel, Anderson, Waggoner, & Rowell, 2006). Thisapproach has clearly defined procedures and guidelines, as follows. In CollaborativeReasoning, students gather with a teacher in small groups of five to eight and discussa ‘big question’ raised by a story they have read. The discussion question raises acontroversial issue or a moral dilemma that creates cognitive conflicts amongdiscussants. While trying to resolve these conflicts, students indicate their positions,

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justify their position with various reasons and evidence, and attempt to persuadeothers. During the discussion, students are also expected to pay attention to otherstudents’ responses, evaluate them in a critical manner, and challenge them onreasonable grounds. Students participating in the Collaborative Reasoning discus-sions are not mandated to reach a consensus on the issue; rather, they areencouraged to explore multiple perspectives and make a careful judgment (Jadallahet al., 2011).

The Collaborative Reasoning approach thus far has been adopted in face-to-faceand asynchronous online settings; this is the first attempt to use the approach in areal-time online discussion context. In determining the effect of participation inonline discussions, the present study employs a more empirically sound researchdesign than previous studies. Using a variety of measures related to argumentation,it examines the essays of students who have and have not experienced onlinediscussions. In addition, the study examines gender difference in written argumentsand investigates whether shy children can benefit from participating in onlinediscussions.

Method

Participants

The study was conducted in a public elementary school in Daegu, a city in thesoutheast of South Korea. Daegu has approximately two and half million residentsand is the third largest city in the nation. Two fourth-grade classrooms participatedin the study. One classroom was randomly assigned to the experimental conditionwhile the other served as a contrast. Both teachers volunteered to participate in thestudy. The number of participants in the experimental classroom was 18 (10 girls, 8boys) and the number of participants in the contrast classroom was also 18 (10 girls,8 boys). The students from the experimental classroom were matched with those inthe contrast classroom in terms of SES, parents’ educational level, and scores in alanguage arts test. Most students’ parents had middle SES and graduated from eitherhigh school or college.

Both teachers in the experimental and contrast classrooms were female and hadfour years’ teaching experiences, and their regular language arts instructions werebased on traditional teacher-controlled format. To help the teachers understand theresearch project and the Collaborative Reasoning approach, a three-hour workshopwas held prior to the study.

Procedure

Identification of shy students

Students in the experimental and contrast classrooms completed a socialquestionnaire which contained various questions (e.g. friendship, class participation,reading, writing performance). To identify shy students, a full list of students in aclass was provided in the questionnaire and the following task was asked to do:‘Circle up to five people in the class who you think are too quiet.’ A total number ofcircles made by the classmates was used as a measure of shyness. The higher thenumber, the more peers regarded the student as shy. The responses of the socialquestionnaire were kept confidential to the researcher.

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Survey on computer use

The students in the experimental classroom completed an additional survey, whichwas related to their computer use. The survey included questions about thekeyboarding skills and the frequency of online chatting via internet.

Participation in online discussions

The students in the experimental classroom were divided into two small groups withnine students in each group. The students were assigned to groups by the teacher tobalance gender, reading ability, and talkativeness.

Each group participated in four sessions of online discussions. For eachdiscussion, they read a different story which had a dilemma or controversy andengaged in argumentation in Korean. While in one group the teacher led thediscussions, in the other group the student class president (a girl) led the discussionswithout the teacher. Class presidents in Korean elementary classrooms are typicallyelected by the whole class and are assumed to be popular and effective leaders. Theclass president assists the teacher in class management and is expected to take therole of teacher in the teacher’s absence. Although the class president had not beenformally trained for leading an online discussion, the researcher explained theprocedures and supervised her during the discussion.

Before each discussion, students read a story which contained a controversial issueor moral dilemma. The stories were selected by the researcher, and the theme andmain characters of stories were counterbalanced for gender. After reading a storysilently in the classroom, both groups of students moved to the computer lab whichwas equipped with high-speed internet. The students individually logged onto anonline chat website with their ID and password, and then entered the virtualchatroom in which they were assigned. In the online chatroom, the students identifiedthemselves with a screen name or nickname (which usually was their real name), butsometimes contained symbols such as “¤ along with their name. The students alsohad an avatar, an image representing them, next to their screen name (see Figure 1,for a sample screen shot). They could change their screen name and avatar at any timeduring the chat. Whenever students changed their screen name, changes of nameswere immediately announced on the screen. The students could also change font, size,style, color of the texts they typed, and could underline their messages. As Figure 1shows, the students’ conversation was displayed on the left side of the screen and a listof screen names and avatars of students who were currently logged in was presented inthe right window of the screen. Students’ entering or leaving the chatroom was alsobroadcast on the screen. Once in a chatroom the teacher or student moderatorannounced the big question for the story they had read, the students started theirconversations and engaged in text-based online discussions in real-time. Whilestudents from the experimental groups participated in online discussions, the studentsfrom the contrast classroom had their regular language arts instruction and did nottake part in any story discussion.

Reflective essay writing

After students in discussion groups finished all four discussions, both discussion andcontrast group students were required to write a reflective essay individually inresponse to a story that had not been previously read or discussed by any of the

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students. The story was titled Pinewood Derby (see Appendix A for full story text),which is about a boy named Thomas, who wins a model car race, but he breaks therule by not making his model car by himself. He confesses to his classmate Jack thathe has actually gotten help from his brother in building the car. Jack has to makedecision whether he should tell on Thomas. On the one hand, Jack feels sad that hehas not won the race despite all the hard work he has done on the car, and thinksthat Thomas does not deserve to win by cheating. On the other hand, he feels sorryfor Thomas who has probably never won any prize in his life, and acknowledges thatno one likes a tattletale. When the original English story was translated into Korean,the names Thomas and Jack were changed to common Korean names, Tae-Ho, andMin-Su, respectively. To preclude any effect that a writing prompt itself may exert,only the following simple question was given as a writing prompt: Should Min-Sutell on Tae-Ho? Write your own thoughts about that. The students wrote an essay inKorean and were given forty minutes for the writing task.

Analysis of reflective essays

The coding scheme for the essays was adapted from an earlier study by Reznitskayaand her research team (2001). The objective of the coding system was to assessvarious aspects of children’s reasoning and argumentation as reflected in the essays.

Figure 1. Sample screen shot of CR discussion in an online chatroom.Note: Images of faces on the left side of the screen are avatars of students. Next to avatars onthe right are students’ screen names. In addition to the transcript on the left side of the screen,a list of the screen names of students who currently logged in is presented in the right windowof the screen.

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The coding scheme was designed to measure: (1) ability to present a variety ofrelevant arguments, (2) disposition to consider alternative perspectives, as expressedby the number of counterarguments and rebuttals, (3) ability to focus on the topic ofthe essay, and (4) tendency to use information from the story text they have read.The coding scheme did not assess mechanical details of writing such as spelling,punctuation, or other minor grammatical errors.

Reflective essays were coded in four steps. At the first step, the essays were parsedout into idea units as defined by Mayer (1985), according to whom an idea unit‘‘expresses one action or event or state, and generally corresponds to a single verbclause’’ (p. 71). For instance, the following was divided into three idea units.

Min-Su should tell the truth. (1)/Because Tae-Ho was not honest, (2)/and he won themodel car race with the help of his brother. (3)/

Second, each idea unit was coded as one of the following subcategories, with therestriction that only one code was assigned per idea unit.

(1) Position. An idea unit which explicitly expresses the stance on the main issue,usually at the beginning of the essay, is coded as position. There are twosubcategories for the position – Yes, or No – based on the answer to the essayquestion.

(2) Argument. All acceptable and distinct reasons are coded as argument.(3) Repetition of Position. When a position statement is repeated, this code is

assigned.(4) Repetition of Reason. When a reason is repeated or closely paraphrased, this

code is assigned.(5) Irrelevant. This code is assigned to an idea unit which does not explicitly or

implicitly pertain to the essay question. When properly advanced forsupporting their chosen position, students’ personal experiences or analogiesare not coded as irrelevant, but as argument.

Third, idea units which oppose the chosen position were additionally coded ascounterargument, and the units which provide a rejustification of the position inresponse to the counterargument were coded as rebuttal. The idea units coded asirrelevant were not given any additional coding.

Finally, the units categorized as argument, counterargument, and rebuttal wereadditionally coded as textual information, if they contained a direct quotation fromthe story or a close paraphrase.

All essays were coded by a rater blind to whether the essay was written by a studentfrom the experimental or contrast groups. About 30% of the essays were randomlyselected for an interrater reliability check. The initial agreement with the other nativeKorean rater, who had been trained to follow the coding system, was 87.9%, and afterdiscussions to resolve discrepancies of coding, the reliability became 97.2%.

Result

Testing the effects of online discussions and gender

Statistical analyses were conducted to investigate the effects of participation in onlinediscussions on the development of argumentation skills as expressed in students’reflective essays. To determine whether these effects were consistent across gender, a

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multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted. The dependentvariables were the number of idea units coded as argument, counterargument,rebuttal, and textual information, repetition of position, repetition of reason, andirrelevant, in addition to the total number of characters produced in the essay. Thesedependent measures were transformed to achieve normality of distribution. After logtransformation [Y0 ¼ log10(Y þ 1)] was employed, the values of skewness andkurtosis for each dependent measure were close to zero and the examination ofhistogram plot did not reveal substantial departures from normality. Theassumption of homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices was also met, as theresult of Box’s test was nonsignificant, M ¼ 69.37, p ¼ 0.53.

The dependent variables were analyzed simultaneously using a MANOVAprocedure with Condition and Gender as fixed factors. The factor Condition has twolevels: Discussion and Contrast. The means and standard deviations for thedependent variables as a function of the two factors are presented in Table 1. Theindividual student was used as a unit of analysis.

The MANOVA result indicated a significant main effect for Condition, F(8, 25) ¼5.26, p 5 0.01 (Wilks’s L ¼ 0.37). The multivariate partial eta squared, Z2, based onWilks’s L, was quite strong, 0.63. Thus, 63% of multivariate variance of the dependentvariables is associated with the main effect for Condition. There was a nonsignificantmain effect for Gender, F(8, 25) ¼ 1.32, p ¼ 0.28 (Wilks’s L ¼ 0.70; Z2 ¼ 0.30), and anonsignificant interaction between Condition and Gender, F(8, 25) ¼ 0.77, p ¼ 0.63(Wilks’s L ¼ 0.80; Z2 ¼ 0.20). Although the differences of means between discussionand contrast groups were greater for girls than boys for all dependent measures, thedifferences were not statistically significant. Therefore, overall, the MANOVA resultsshowed that there was a significant effect of online discussions on the development ofindividual reasoning and that the effect was consistent across gender.

As follow-up tests, analyses of variances (ANOVA) on each dependentvariable were conducted for the factor Condition, which was found significant inthe MANOVA. The ANOVA results showed that compared to contrast groups, the

Table 1. Means and (standard deviations) for dependent variables.

Condition

Variable Gender Discussion Contrast

Arguments GirlsBoys

23.30 (9.21)17.00 (5.24)

12.20 (6.16)11.13 (5.36)

Counterarguments GirlsBoys

4.10 (4.53)2.88 (2.80)

1.10 (1.52)1.25 (1.67)

Rebuttals GirlsBoys

5.20 (5.79)4.88 (4.85)

0.90 (1.45)0.88 (0.83)

Textual information GirlsBoys

9.20 (5.55)5.25 (2.92)

3.80 (2.49)3.63 (2.62)

Repetition of position GirlsBoys

2.60 (1.58)1.25 (1.16)

1.10 (0.57)0.88 (0.83)

Repetition of reasons GirlsBoys

1.70 (2.06)0.50 (0.53)

2.30 (3.68)1.75 (2.66)

Irrelevant GirlsBoys

0.80 (1.32)0.00 (0.00)

1.20 (1.32)2.25 (3.69)

Number of characters GirlsBoys

534.90 (226.4)301.38 (60.00)

284.10 (124.9)266.13 (96.19)

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essays of students in discussion groups contained significantly higher number of ideaunits coded arguments, counterarguments, rebuttals, and textual information, withp-values less than 0.05. Although students in discussion groups had fewer idea unitscoded as repetition of reason than contrast group students, the difference was notstatistically significant, F(1, 32) ¼ 0.82, p ¼ 0.37. In comparison with contrastgroups, the students in discussion groups had significantly fewer idea units coded asirrelevant, F(1, 32) ¼ 6.35, p 5 0.05. The discussion groups had a significantlyhigher mean in a total number of characters than contrast groups, F(1, 32) ¼ 11.80,p 5 0.01.

A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was also conducted toremove the error variance associated with language arts skills. A language arts testscore was used as a covariate, and Condition and Gender were used as two fixedfactors. The interactions between the covariate and two fixed factors were notsignificant, with obtained p-values ranging from 0.66 to 0.90. Thus, the assumptionof homogeneity of regression slopes was met for MANCOVA. The results were fullyconsistent with those from MANOVA, and only the main effect for Condition wasstatistical significant, F(8, 24) ¼ 6.76, p 5 0.001 (Wilks’s L ¼ 0.31; Z2 ¼ 0.69). Theresults of ANCOVAs, conducted as follow-up analyses, also consistently showedthat except for the variable repetition of reasons, all the dependent variables werestatistically significant for the Condition factor, with p-values less than 0.05.

Within the Discussion condition, there were two groups, teacher-led and student-ledgroups. To investigate whether these two discussion groups differed in terms of essaywriting, analyses of variances (ANOVA) were performed on each dependent variable.The results indicated that in all the measures there was no significant difference betweenteacher-led and student-led groups, with all p-values greater than 0.20. Consequently, itis apparent that the influence of online discussions upon students’ development ofreasoning was similar across teacher-led and student-led groups.

Prediction of development of reasoning

Students’ responses to the survey on the computer use were examined, as it may beassociated with their performance in online discussions. Almost all students have acomputer at home equipped with high-speed internet connection. The surveyshowed that 27.8% of the students said they have an online chat every day, 33.3%of them do several times a week, 27.8% once a week, and 11.1% never do. Thus,nearly 90% of the students have an online chat at least once a week. The frequencyof having an online chat was similar for girls and boys. With respect to keyboardingskills, 55.6% of the students replied they can type fairly well, 33.3% can typemoderately, and 11.1% can type only a little. Keyboarding skills were not differentbetween girls and boys.

Regression analysis was conducted to predict students’ development of reasoningas reflected in the essay. The dependent measures related to reasoned argumentationwere the number of idea units coded as arguments, counterarguments, rebuttals,textual information, repetition of position, repetition of reason, and irrelevant. Theyalso included the total number of characters generated in the essay. Predictors werelanguage arts score, propensity to write, familiarity with online chatting, and theaverage number of turns per discussion. The first three predictors were measuredprior to online discussions, and the last predictor, average number of turns wascomputed after all online discussions. The predicting variable, propensity to write,

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was obtained from students’ responses to a set of questions related to writing insocial questionnaire (e.g. ‘How true are these statements to you? I like writing storiesand essays more than other kinds of assignments’). Scores of each Likert scalequestion, ranging from 1 to 5, were combined to produce a single value. Anotherpredicting variable, familiarity with online chatting was obtained through adding upthe scores of two questions in the computer use survey: (1) ‘How often do you chatwith your friends in online context?’ and (2) ‘How well can you type in Korean?’These questions also had a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5. The average number ofturns per discussion was measured after all the discussions. The minimum value forthe average number of turns per discussion was 11.8, whereas the maximum was80.5. The mean for the average number of turns per discussion was 30.9, and boyshad a slightly higher mean (M ¼ 32.1) than girls (M ¼ 30.0).

Due to small sample size (n ¼ 18), simple linear regression analysis wasperformed, instead of multiple regression (Pedhazur, 1997). The results of separatesimple linear regression analyses revealed that the average number of turns in onlinediscussions was the only significant predictor of arguments (F ¼ 5.60, p 5 0.05,R2 ¼ 0.26), rebuttals (F ¼ 4.78, p 5 0.05, R2 ¼ 0.23), and number of characters(F ¼ 5.49, p 5 .05, R2 ¼ 0.26). In other regression analyses, the prediction ofdependent measures by the average number of conversation turns was notsignificant, like other predictors. When the average number of turns in onlinediscussions was a dependent variable, the familiarity with online chatting was theonly significant predictor (F ¼ 6.15, p 5 0.05, R2 ¼ 0.28).

Shy children

In discussion groups, four students (two girls, two boys) were considered as shy,based on the social questionnaire ratings by classmates. Their ratings were 26, 21, 9,and 5, respectively. The higher the rating, the more classmates regarded the studentas shy. The students’ average number of turns per online discussion was 12.8, 11.8,17.5, and 39 respectively. Since the mean of discussion groups for the averagenumber of turns was 30.92, three of the students spoke much less than the others inthe group. In the contrast groups, four students (two girls, two boys) were alsoregarded as shy, and their ratings were 28, 20, 10, and 8, respectively.

Essays of shy children in discussion and contrast groups were compared in termsof argumentation related measures. Table 2 shows the means for argumentationrelated measures for shy children in discussion and contrast groups. Inferentialstatistical analysis was not conducted due to very small sample size (n ¼ 4), but

Table 2. Means for measures for shy children.

Measure CR Contrast

Arguments 20.00 10.50Counterarguments 4.75 1.75Rebuttals 6.00 0.25Textual information 8.50 5.25Repetition of position 2.25 0.75Repetition of reasons 0.75 0.50Irrelevant 0.00 1.50Number of characters 387.00 215.00

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descriptive analysis showed that shy children in discussion groups had higher meansin all the measures but irrelevant. This result was consistent with the result from theMANOVA involving all subjects, except that the shy children in discussion groupscontained more idea units coded as repetition of reason than counterparts in contrastgroups.

In summary, the results show that:

. the effect of participation in online discussions on the development ofreasoning was statistically significant, and the effect was consistent acrossgender;

. compared to contrast groups, the essays of students in discussion groups weresignificantly longer, had fewer irrelevant statements, and contained signifi-cantly more arguments, counterarguments, rebuttals, and textual information;

. the average number of turns in online discussions was the only significantpredictor of the number of arguments, rebuttals, and total characters producedin the reflective essay;

. and the children regarded as shy by their peers spoke less than the others in theonline discussion group. However, in terms of the reflective essay, compared tothe counterparts in the contrast groups, the shy children in the discussiongroups generally performed better in all measures related to reasonedargumentation.

Discussion

The results of the present study suggest that participation in synchronous onlinediscussions promotes students’ development of reasoning and sound argumentation,as evidenced in the reflective essays. The essays of students in the online discussiongroups contained more satisfactory arguments, counterarguments, rebuttals, andtextual information than the compositions written by the students in the contrastgroups. The improvement in argumentation skills may be associated with thefeatures of the text-based synchronous online communication mode. The real-timeonline chat enabled the participating students to give and receive immediateresponses, which facilitated interaction and a sense of social presence in a virtualnetwork (Kehrwald, 2008). The participating students did not have a problem copingwith fast-paced online conversations, as they had sufficient typical skills. During theonline chat the students could put forth their ideas almost at the same time, and itenabled them to see widely diverse views on the same issue. Reading and respondingto diverse opinions and voices may have broadened students’ views and helped themthink more critically about the issue (Bakhtin, 1986).

In addition to these features of synchronous communication mode, the formatand procedures of discussion may have played an important role in fostering criticalthinking skills. The Collaborative Reasoning approach, adopted for onlinediscussions, uses the stories and discussion questions carefully developed to elicitmultiple perspectives and diverse ideas. The discussion was held in a small group andthus the students could easily keep track of other group members’ messages.Moreover, the Collaborative Reasoning method has clear guidelines and step-by-step procedures. The teacher established a set of ground rules and discussions normsfor students to follow. The teacher also employed various instructional moves toprompt, challenge, manage turn-taking, and monitor discussions. The students all

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knew what they were expected to do during the discussion; they were activelyinvolved in the process of questioning and challenging the ideas. All these factorsassociated with the Collaborative Reasoning approach might have further enhancedstudents’ development of argumentation and critical thinking skills. As previousstudies on synchronous communication have suggested, simply relying on theinstructional features of a communication channel may not be sufficient inpromoting reasoning skills; rather, the communication system needs to beimplemented with clear guidelines (Chou, 2001; Weinberger et al., 2010) andeffective teachers’ moves, (Wang, 2005), as in the Collaborative Reasoning.Otherwise, students’ synchronous online discussions might end up being just playfulchats (Cox et al., 2004).

The results of the study suggest that reasoning skills gained through participationin synchronous online discussions can be transferred to individual essay writing. Theperformances in written argumentation in the essays of the students who participatedin online discussions may be primarily due to the carryover effects of engaging in thediscussions, because no formal lesson for reflective essay writing was given to thestudents. The previous studies (e.g. Dong, Anderson, Kim, & Li, 2008) showed thatthe argumentative knowledge gained through face-to-face oral discussion can betransferred to individual reflective essay writing. The current finding expands thetransfer effect to synchronous online communication context. In fact, the transfereffect from real-time online discussions might be greater than from face-to-face oraldebates because text-based online communication uses a written language as amedium (Yates, 1996). Further study may be conducted to investigate how thetransfer of acquired knowledge differs across communication modes.

Besides reasoning skills, students who had experienced online discussionsexhibited increased literacy-related skills in their essays. Compared to the contrastgroups, students in discussion groups wrote longer essays, displayed a more diverserepertoire of arguments, and contained a fewer number of irrelevant statements intheir essays. The greater length of the essays may be associated with the transfer ofheightened interest in argumentation through participating in online discussions.Text-based real-time conversations may have led students to feel less stressed inwriting and enjoyed the writing activity to communicate ideas. A greater diversity ofarguments and perspectives may also be a carryover effect of participating in onlinediscussions, in which students were encouraged to explore multiple perspectives onan issue. The fewer number of irrelevant statements may be related to a student-initiated move during the discussion. When students recognized their discussionswere off the topic or their classmates were making irrelevant utterances, they tendedto promptly remind others of the main topic (Li et al., 2007). This move may leadchildren to sort out irrelevant claims and focus more on the issue underconsideration. These results add support to earlier findings that online discussionsenhance students’ ability to discriminate relevant and irrelevant contexts (Veerman,2000) and maintain focus on the topic of the discussion (Sullivan & Pratt, 1996).These results are also consistent with the findings of Pilkington and Walker (2003b),but the present study provides a stronger support to the influence of collaborativeonline discussions, because unlike their research, a computer-assisted writingprogram was not implemented in the online chat tool.

Students’ uses of arguments and rebuttals, as well as the length of their essays,are adequately predicted by the number of their conversational turns during thediscussions. In contrast, students’ language arts skills, propensity to write, and

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familiarity with online chatting failed to make a reliable prediction of the quality oftheir written arguments. By showing that students’ involvement with collaborativeonline discussions is closely related to their argumentative writing, the present studycorroborates the significant role of social interaction in the development of students’individual reasoning (Piaget, 1965; Rogoff, 1995; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertch, 1985) andsuggests the transfer of learning between different instructional contexts (Reznits-kaya & Anderson, 2002).

The influence of online discussions was not different across gender. Girls did notdiffer from boys in terms of the average number of turns per discussion. In essaywriting, girls and boys in discussion groups showed similar improvements in allmeasures of argumentation. The results suggest that synchronous online discussionssimilarly benefit both girls and boys. Although previous studies indicate theparticipation of shy children tends to increase in online communication contexts(Handa, 1990), the children regarded as shy by their peers in the present study spokestill less than others in the group. Online chatroom allows all discussants to speak theirideas freely at any time, and lack of social cues may reduce anxiety about participating,in particular, anxiety about disagreeing and using counterarguments. However,considering the predominant discourse style of online chat is conversational in nature(Werry, 1996; Yates, 1996), the children’ disposition to be reserved might not easilychange during online discussions. Although the shy children spoke less than others inthe online discussion group, they still benefited from participating in the discussions.With regard to the reflective essay, the shy children in the discussion groups generallyperformed better in all measures related to reasoned argumentation than thecounterparts in the contrast groups. Synchronous online discussions might haveenabled shy children to learn through vicarious participation or observation.

Some considerations need to be made before generalizing the findings of the currentstudy. Participating students were classmates, and they engaged in synchronous onlinediscussions in a computer lab. Along with immediacy and interactivity of synchronousonline communication, this setting where all the discussants were in the same roommight have further increased a feeling of social presence and a sense of community (Tu& McIsaac, 2002). In this study, participating students used their real name as theirscreen name in the chatroom. If the discussants did not know one another personallyand did not identify themselves with their real name, their discussions might haveproduced different instructional outcomes. While online discussions in anonymoussettings may elicit more counterarguments and rebuttals, they might degenerate into‘flaming’ – or hostile, sarcastic exchanges (Dyer, Green, Pitts, & Millward, 1995).Flaming is likely to disrupt the collaborative atmosphere needed for productivediscussion of an issue and negatively affect social relationship among discussants(Light, Nesbitt, Light, & Burns, 2000). In this study, the use of the students’ real namein a discussion may have prevented negative social behaviors in the virtual space.Another fact to be considered is that most of the participating students, living in a largecity, were proficient at keyboarding and familiar with online chatting. Many of themhave online chats at least once a week. Without such proficient computer skills andprevious chatting experiences, students would have had problems in participating infast-paced real-time online discussions.

Overall, the findings of this study present the possibility of utilizing the onlinechat environment as an effective instructional tool to promote students’ reasoningand literacy skills. These findings do not necessarily suggest that the online chattingis a far more effective instructional tool than a face-to-face oral discussion.

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Traditionally, a face-to-face oral discussion has been often used to engage students incritical thinking and problem solving. In fact, according to social presence theory(Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976), a face-to-face oral discussion provides the bestcommunication medium in which discussants can transmit and receive rich verbaland nonverbal information, including tone, facial expressions, body language, andgesture. With development of technology, a synchronous online communicationmode was made possible, and it enabled students and teacher to communicatethrough real-time text-based messages rather than oral conversations. Despite itsfeatures distinct from face-to-face communication, for many teachers and educators,text-based online chatting has been viewed as simply a fun activity which does notyield substantial academic gains. Some empirical studies (e.g. Schultz, 2003) evenreported the adverse effects of text-based synchronous communication. However, thefindings of the present study suggest that the text-based synchronous communicationitself is not inherently beneficial or detrimental and that it can be a useful tool if it isimplemented with an instructional approach involving clear procedures and effectivemoves. Moreover, the text-based online communication can provide an opportunityfor more equal participation among students, especially for those who usually arereticent in face-to-face conversations.

Practical implication of the present study is to adopt a blended instruction offace-to-face oral discussion and text-based online chat for promoting criticalthinking and literacy skills. For instance, as Warschauer (1996) suggested, text-basedonline chat can be conducted as a prelude to oral discussion. Through online chat, ateacher can encourage all students to generate ideas and look them over and thendiscuss them orally. Online chat can be also incorporated as a pre-writing activitybecause it can serve as a bridge from spoken conversation to written composition.When a teacher combines face-to-face and online discussions in such a way, takingadvantage of each communication mode, he or she can provide an effective andequal opportunity for all students to learn to reason by interacting with one another.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to two anonymous journal reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.Any errors or shortcomings are my own.

Notes on contributor

Dr. IL-Hee Kim is an assistant professor in the College of Education and Public Policy atIndiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne. He is also a director of the AppleseedWriting Project (an affiliate of National Writing Project). He obtained his Ph.D. ineducational psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His researchinterests include writing and collaborative online discussions.

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Appendix A.

The story for reflective essay writing task, in original English version

The Pinewood Derby

‘‘What a sleek-looking car,’’ Jack’s dad exclaimed.

Jack had just put the final touches on the model car he would race in the PinewoodDerby. Everyone in his fifth-grade class would be bringing in their balsawood cars forthe big race.

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‘‘I’m real proud of him,’’ Jack heard Dad tell Mom, ‘‘and I didn’t have to help him onebit.’’

He was right. Jack had put the car together all by himself. It was hard to glue the wheelson just right, and he never did get the front one’s straight. Some of the glue had drippedon to the back wheel, so when it rolled it sort of hopped. Like someone with a bad limp.He had never used a knife before, so the carving was uneven. Still, he was pleased withhimself for following the directions. Mr. Howard was pretty firm about followingdirections.

Mr. Howard was Jack’s teacher. He had given everyone, including Jack, a box that said‘‘Pinewood Derby Car Kit’’ on it several weeks before.

‘‘I want all of you to work on these cars yourselves,’’ bellowed Mr. Howard.

He had passed out instructions to everyone in the class. Inside the kit were a block ofbalsawood, four black plastic wheels, glue, paint, and a small carving knife.

‘‘Be very careful with the knife. It’s very sharp. Remember to make the car asaerodynamic as you can. ‘Aerodynamic’ means smooth, so it isn’t slowed down by theair. Follow the instructions carefully, but most of all, do the work yourselves.’’

Jack had worked on his car every night during those three weeks. When his sister askedhim if he wanted to see a movie, he said no. When his neighbor asked him to play catch,he said no. He had been a very hard worker.

Finally, it was the day of the race. Jack brought his car to school in a cardboard box.Everyone else in the class had their cars too, and they were trying to decide whose wasthe fastest.

‘‘I think Lashanda’s going to win,’’ said Aaron, ‘‘her car is screaming!’’

Lashanda nodded, ‘‘Yeah, it wasn’t easy doing it all by myself either. It took a long timeand I missed out on my favorite t.v. shows.’’

‘‘Well, I think Norman’s got the best car,’’ said Andrea, ‘‘because everyone knows redcars are the fastest.’’

Jack saw that one kid, Thomas, was standing in the back of the room, tightly holding abox. Thomas noticed Jack was looking at him, and he smiled.

Thomas wasn’t liked by many of the students in Mr. Howard’s class, probably becausehe wasn’t very nice. Sometimes he would push a kid for no reason, or call them names.He always wore clothes that were dirty and he smelled funny. Jack felt sorry for him.Mom told him to always be kind to people who have less than others.

‘‘Hey, Jack, come look at this,’’ Thomas whispered, motioning to Jack with his finger.

Jack walked over and Thomas set his box down on one of the tables near the back of theroom. He gently opened the lid, and inside was the most beautiful model car Jack hadever seen.

‘‘Wow!’’ shouted Jack, ‘‘You made that?’’

Thomas looked around.

‘‘No, my brother made it. I mean, I did some of it, like the paint and the stickers an’stuff, but my brother, he made sure the wheels were on straight.’’

Then he closed the lid of the box.

‘‘Don’t tell no one, okay?’’ Thomas whispered.

Jack hesitated.

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‘‘Okay,’’ he said.

Everyone got to race their cars. They could only race two cars at a time on the track, sothe winner of one race would go against the winner of the another race, until there wasonly one winner left. Jack won his first race, but he lost the second one to Kaitlin. Hercar was red. But Thomas won every race, and he was named Grand Champion. Mr.Howard handed him a big trophy, and everyone admired it. They all shook Thomas’hand and said what a fast car he had. Thomas was so happy.

Jack felt a little strange. He felt sad that he hadn’t won, after all the work he had doneon the car. He also felt weird about what Thomas had said. Thomas shouldn’t havewon, he thought, because he didn’t build the car by himself. All the other kids had builttheirs on their own. But then he thought about how Thomas had probably never wonanything in his life. This might have been the first time Thomas had ever won a prize ofany kind. And how could he tell? Nobody likes a tattletale.

Mr. Howard sat down next to Jack.

‘‘You had a really fast car there, Jack,’’ said Mr. Howard, ‘‘and I bet you put a lot ofwork into it.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ said Jack.

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