The Impact of Case-Based Discussion Design on Cognitive Presence and Learning in Online Courses
Concurrent Session 8
Brief Abstract
This presentation will discuss the results of a study investigating case-based instruction as a strategy to foster cognitive presence and high-level learning in online courses. The presentation will help faculty, course designers, and researchers who are interested in designing asynchronous discussions to facilitate cognitive presence in online communities of inquiry.
Extended Abstract
The exponential growth in online education has led to an increasing interest in the socio-cognitive views of education. According to Garrison (2017), cognitive presence represents the means to support and sustain a purposeful learning community. It is a core element of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework that guides the use of online learning environments through a social-constructivist approach to learning. Cognitive presence is operationalized through the Practical Inquiry (PI) based on four phases–triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution–that provide a practical means to judge the nature and quality of critical reflection and discourse in a CoI (Garrison, 2011). To enhance the quality of online courses, it is important to understand strategies that can support the development of cognitive presence.
Case-based (CB) discussions is one of the promising approaches used to facilitate cognitive presence anf high-level learning through application of real-world scenarios across different disciplines (Sadaf & Olesova, 2017). Although CB discussions can help facilitate high-level learning (Darabi et al., 2013; Ertmer & Koehler, 2014), research related to the impact of their design on student cognitive presence is limited. Therefore, the purpose of the study is to explore the impact of CB discussion on students’ cognitive presence and student perceptions of the design elements that contribute to their learning in online courses. The following research questions guided our study:
- What are student perceptions of the impact of CB discussions on their cognitive presence and learning?
- What is the relationship between perceived cognitive presence, perceived learning and academic performance in online CB discussions?
- What is the relationship between each indicator of perceived cognitive presence levels in CB discussions and the course grade?
- What design elements of online CB discussions did students perceive to contribute to their learning? What suggestions do they have to improve the design of CB discussions?
Methods
A sequential explanatory mixed methods design was used in which quantitative data were collected from online survey and qualitative data were collected from open-ended survey questions.
Participants
A sample of eighty graduate students (60 males and 20 females) enrolled in an Instructional Design course were invited to participate in this study. About half (43.75%, n = 35) of the students were more than 40 years old. The majority (59%, n=47) of the participants had taken more than 3 online courses. All of the participants rated themselves as being either fairly or very comfortable with participating in online discussions.
Context of the study
The online course was offered over a 15-week semester and delivered via a learning management system, Canvas. Students were required to engage in a week-long online discussion per week as part of their course grade. During the semester, students participated in 13 online discussions on various topics– three CB discussions and ten non-CB discussions. The CB discussions consisted of decision-making problems referred to by Jonassen (2010) as a rational choice model, in which a group of students compare different options and rationally select the best solutions to the problem. In these discussions, students were given a case that described a scenario with a specific issue/problem. Students were required to analyze the problem situations within the case, reflect on the concepts learned in the course, explore the relevant information, exchange opinions and ideas by responding to each other’s posts and propose as well as justify a solution to the issues presented in the case study.
Data Collection and Analysis
Data were collected from an online survey administered at the end of Fall 2018, Spring 2019, and Fall 2019 semesters. Students responded to the CoI survey questions with a reflection on their CB discussions experience. The CoI survey was developed to measure students’ perception of cognitive presence, teaching presence, and social presence (Arbaugh et al., 2008). Since the focus of this study is cognitive presence, only 12 items from the CoI survey that measure cognitive presence were used. The items employed a 5-point Likert-type scale, with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. Students’ perceived learning was measured by adding one survey items at the end. Demographic information was also collected such as gender, age, and prior experience with online courses. In addition, qualitative data were sought using open-ended questions in order to further explain the design elements that influenced students learning.
The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as means and standard deviations. In addition, a Pearson moment-product correlation was computed to explore the relationships between perceived learning, cognitive presence, discussion grade, and a final course grade in online CB discussions. Assumptions required by the correlation analysis such as normality, linearity and homogeneity were tested through visual inspection using a scatter plot and a histogram. Finally, qualitative data from the open-ended survey responses were analyzed using a constant comparative approach (Miles & Huberman, 1994).
Results
RQ1: Results showed, in general, students reported high levels for all four phases of cognitive presence–Triggering, exploration, integration, and resolution (see Table 1). Specifically, students had high perceptions of their cognitive presence related to both integration (M = 4.19, SD = 0.71) and resolution (M = 4.29, SD = 0.67) phases on the 1-5 scale. These were followed by triggering (M = 4.17, SD = 0.62) and Exploration (M = 4.13, SD = 0.66).
RQ2: The correlation analysis was performed to see if there was any significant relationship between students’ perception of cognitive presence, perceived learning, and grades. Note that there were two variables for perceived learning: one for the CB discussions and the other for the course discussions. Also, students’ learning performance was measured with two variables: a grade on the CB discussions and a final course grade.
Results shows that “Exploration” yielded relatively a high correlation with students’ perceived learning from CB discussions (r=.764, p<.01) and overall course discussions (r=.757, p<.01), compared to other phases of cognitive presence. The phase that revealed the second strongest relation to these variables was “Integration”, followed by “Triggering Event.” The last phase, “Resolution”, was found to have the lowest correlation with students’ perceived learning from the CB discussions (r=.697, p<.01) and the course discussions (r=.479, p<.01). Overall, students’ perceived learning showed a similar level of association with cognitive presence across the four phases. Most interestingly, only “Exploration” was found to be significantly related to the course grade (r=.226, p < .05).
RQ3: The correlations between each indicator of cognitive presence and the course grade were examined (Table 3). The analysis resulted in two significant correlations for “Brainstorming & finding information helped me solve problems” and “I can describe ways to test and apply knowledge” with the correlation value of 0.225 and 0.245, respectively, at the alpha level of 0.05. This finding suggests that students who utilized these two aspects of cognitive presence while engaging with the CB discussions tended to get a higher final course grade.
RQ4: The content analysis of the open-ended survey data resulted in descriptions of the design elements of CB discussions that contributed to students’ learning. The five main areas that emerged from the data analysis were (1) nature of the discussion task, (2) initial question prompts, (3) embedded peer interaction, (4) relevance of topic, and (5) well-structured activities. For example, one participant indicated that the discussion task “gave me the opportunity to feel like I was in the situation and to analyze how I would approach it”, while another noted that “The question prompts really helped to get me thinking as an Instructional Designer and I enjoyed defending my point of view for the cases.” Furthermore, students indicated that they liked two parts–problem-finding and problem-solving– small group format because it “made it easy to follow conversations and participate in discussions as well as learning from peers.” Additionally, students suggested to improve CB discussion design by tailoring the cases to students’ diverse career interests, providing more time for discourse, and incorporating collaborative activities like debate and roleplay.
Conclusion
Case-based approach has great potential for engaging students in disciplinary content and understanding how this approach in online courses impact student cognitive presence and learning outcomes may inform the design of online courses. This study contributes to the limited body of knowledge on student perceptions of the design of CB discussions in fostering cognitive presence and learning. Instructors and course designers who consider using CB approach in their online courses may use this knowledge to design their discussions to foster cognitive presence thus developing online communities of inquiry.
Level of Participation:
Presenters will share results and invite the audience to discuss how the findings may be applied to their online courses. The audience will also share their own practices any experiences with CB discussions. They will reflect on how their practices that can be improved by using the findings of this study.