Analysis of a global online debate and the development of an interaction analysis model for examining social construction of knowledge in computer conferencing
Gunawardena, Lowe, & Anderson (1997)

what was studied
This study examined the quality of learning and social knowledge construction that occurred during an international global online debate. The debate was held in an online asynchronous discussion environment. 554 scholars from around the world participated in a week-long debate over the role and importance of "interaction" in distance learning. Two assessment questions were the focus of the analysis:

• Was knowledge constructed within the group through interaction among its participants? (Here, the group is the unit of analysis.)
• Did individual participants change their understanding or create new personal constructions of knowledge as a result of interactions within the group? (Here, the agent-in-setting is the primary focus.)

how effectiveness was measured
Computer transcripts from the online environment were collected and a content analysis was conducted. Using grounded theory techniques²¹, a coding scheme was developed to capture the following:

• the type of cognitive activities participants engaged in (questioning, clarifying, negotiating, synthesizing, etc.)

• the types of arguments participants advanced

• the resources participants leveraged in exploring their differences and negotiating meaning (e.g., reports of personal experience, literature references, data, etc.)

• any evidence of changes in understanding or the creation of new understanding (i.e., knowledge construction) as a result of group interactions

1. Sharing/Comparing of Information

2. The Discovery and Exploration of Dissonance or Inconsistency among Ideas, Concepts or Statements

3. Negotation of Meaning/Co-Construction of Knowledge

4. Testing and Modification of Proposed Synthesis or Co-Construction

5. Agreement Statement(s)/Applications of Newly Constructed Meaning

This five-stage process of development, the authors argue, are necessary to the generation of new knowledge and understanding in groups in which there are substantial areas of disagreement or inconsistency of beliefs, although some phases remain implicit or short (for example, when there is little misalignment, negotiation is typically left unspoken but implied). The structure of the debate both hindered and helped participants during the learning process: On the one hand, facilitation throughout the week and the use of summarization at the end of each day's conversation assisted the progress of each group through the sequential phases of development; on the other hand, the polarization of the topic at the outset forced participants to align themselves as strictly for or against the issue from the very beginning. Interestingly, some participants moved through several of the phases in a single message, indicating that knowledge construction was indeed occurring not only at the group level but at the individual level as well.