Analysis of an online interaction

Assessment | Analysis of an online interaction
Length | 1500 words
References APA7
———————————————————————————
What is the purpose of this assessment?
The purpose of this task is for you to gain an understanding of how to analyse online interactions.

What do I need to do for this assessment?
You are to conduct a small analysis of a selected set of online interactions in one online group learning activity in which you have participated (from this subject, within Module 3). This could be the online activity you presented or another activity you participated in.
Your written analysis is to include:
An introduction to the conceptual framework used to reflect upon the online interactions (e.g. Community of Inquiry, Online engagement framework for higher education, or model of student learning and engagement)
A summary description of the interaction/learning strategy, topic and tools used
The purpose of your analysis with a guiding research question
How you conducted your analysis (methodology)
The findings from your analysis
A brief discussion about what the findings mean in terms of online learning and teaching and how they may inform practice (in order words – explaining the 'so what'? of your analysis).

This assignment is 25% and is to be maximum of 1500 words (excluding tables, references and appendices).

There are many ways to analyse online interactions. For Assessment 3 you will be introduced to one approach. This approach is to use a conceptual framework to analyse and reflect upon a sample of online interactions.
Here are suggested steps on how to approach Assessment 3:

1. Choose and review the online postings from a group's online learning activity that you have participated in.
As you implemented your group's online learning activity or participated in some other group's online learning activity you will have seen what happened online.
The first thing you need to do is decide what group activity you would like to focus on for this task and then
refresh your memory by reviewing the online posts made in that online learning activity. You need to have access to these online posts for your analysis.

Important note: you don't need to select and analyse all the online interactions that occurred in a group's online learning activity. Instead, you only need to include some.
(When I say some – you need to select enough online posts that will enable you to do a reasonable level of analysis about the interaction that occurred. Use the sample 2 and activity in Week 11 as a guide)

2. Read the following articles and select one conceptual framework to apply to your analysis:
Option 1 Community of Inquiry conceptual frame
Article | Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2000)
This article introduces you to Cognitive, Social and Teacher presence which are aspects of the Community of Inquiry conceptual frame. You are to use the template they present (Table 1) to look for evidence of cognitive, social and/or teaching presence. This is how you will analyse your selected set of posts. Though the article is relatively old, the framework remains relevant and the authors outline the method of analysis very well, which should inform your approach.

Option 2 Online engagement framework for higher education
Article | Adopting a framework to support the process of critical reflection and understanding of online engagement (Redmond, et a;., 2022).

This article presents two frameworks for considering student engagement in online learning. Online engagement framework presented in Table 1 on page 114, and the Model of student learning and engagement shown in Figure 1 on page 116. Both of these frameworks are applied to analyse student engagement. The scope of this assessment is much smaller, so you are invited to select one (or parts there of) to apply to your analysis.

3. Pose a question you want to answer about a sample of online interactions
Next you need to pose a question that may be answered through your analysis. For example:
Was there evidence of teacher presence?
What was the extent of cognitive presence for a particular task/activity?
Was there evidence of social presence and if so, did it aid the cognitive presence?
Once you have posed your question, you will select the relevant conceptual framework and sub-elements to apply in your analysis. You can do a small analysis to find evidence of a specific sub-set of elements within the frameworks (e.g. just focus on cognitive or social presence), or select a smaller sample of interactions and analsyse all elements of one of the frameworks. It's up to you.
Also, as I mentioned above, you don't have to analyse all the postings that were made in your online learning activity. You may choose to select one small task, eg., one discussion forum, contributions and comments made in a Google Doc, etc.

4. Select the data to include in your analysis
Decide on what postings you will use for your analysis.
Copy and paste this into a Word document.

5. Code your selected piece of data using your analysis tool
Code each sentence or phrase from your data against your chosen conceptual frame, eg., this sentence represents an example of teacher presence. The activities in Week 11 will support you to conduct this analysis.
Present this analysis in a table that presents the frequency of each of the categories within your framework. You should also present a written discussion of the findings.
Once you've done this analysis – what conclusions can you draw? How would you answer the question you posed?
Then consider:
Does your analysis provide you with some ideas of how the online activity could be improved?
What ideas do you have about how a similar kind of activity could be used in another educational context – eg., could you implement a similar activity in your teaching?

7 . Write your assignment in report style
Here are some tips for writing your assignment:
Clearly describe what the online task was about in terms of topic and what students (you, the class) were asked to do.
Clearly explain the purpose, methodology and findings of your analysis. The purpose will include the question you are posing. The methodology will explain how you conducted your analysis, and the findings will explain what you found. Please remember to include a brief summary at the end that explicitly answers the question you posed yourself.
Don't forget to explain how you think the online activity could be improved in terms of type of task and type of tool used and how you think a similar task could be implemented in another educational context, eg., say your work context.
Refer to the Assessment rubric below to review how you will be assessed for this assignment.

Past student sample
Past student sample 1
Past student sample 2

Submission
This assessment will be submitted via Turnitin.

Assessment criteria
You will be assessed using the following criteria:
Demonstrated understanding of the analysis approach undertaken
Clarity and quality of the presentation of your results and discussion
Your writing expression is clear; your spelling, grammar and referencing is correct; and inclusion of literature is relevant/appropriate.
See the marking rubric for more detailed descriptors of each of the assessment criteria.

Last Completed Projects