Cohesion and coherence in Nicenet

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FROM: Richard Watson Todd (09/05/13 7:03 PM PST)
SUBJECT: Linking responses to earlier postings

How are responses to Nicenet postings linked to the earlier postings?

An example: the most recent topic 'New word info in Google search' has received 2 responses. Looking for cohesion, my response to Stuart's posting only explicitly reiterates 'Google', 'feature', 'info' (from the original subject line), and 'frequently used' (linking to 'frequency of use'). I'm not sure whether 'you' should be counted as being cohesive or not (since it's such a common word), and also how we can recover the referent of 'It' in my last paragraph. This low level of cohesion suggests that there must be substantial coherence between Stuart's posting and my response.

Amin's response is more clearly linked to both Stuart's and my postings. His use of 'new' 'words' and 'definitions' shows that he is responding within the topic area of Stuart's posting, but the focus on 'arrows' and 'aggravate' suggest his posting may be more of a response to mine than to Stuart's.

An alternative analysis:
Stuart's original posting is primarily informative with a final evaluative judgment. My response is more like advice, but again has a final evaluative judgment (was I mirroring Stuart's genre pattern of 'finish with an evaluation' in mine?) Amin's response is a report based on the advice, and again he finishes by mirroring the previous message's final function (statement of puzzlement).

Looking at some other threads on Nicenet, are there any other patterns to cohesion/coherence? E.g. are there any threads where the original topic shifts to a new topic because of a particular response? Are there any responses which have very dense reiterations of items from previous postings (the Google example does not use many reiterations), and, if so, how is the meaning of the response made different from the original? Is coherence between postings more propositional (as in the first analysis here focusing on content) or interactional (as in the alternative analysis focusing on functions)?

[admin]

FROM: jeffrey jeff (09/08/13 6:58 PM PST)
SUBJECT:

"Discrimination in applied linguistics" posted by Aj Worawut is an example of a thread where dense reiterations of 'native speaker' is common. The creation of sub-topics are also visible such as on 'who is a native speaker' in what context (ELF?) and 'L2 fluency' as a continuum for non-native speakers of English. The argument in support of the 'native speaker' requirement resulted in two ways based on the language per se: that the use of 'native speaker' as a requirement in job posting is discriminatory (from the perspectives of native and non-native English speakers) while BAAL's policy could result to another form of discrimination (from the perspective of non-native speaker of Saek language). I think the coherence of the responses is more propositional but requires the reader's cognitive frame to link the arguments that came up, i.e., Thailand's situation, BAAL as an organization, English fluency cline, among others.

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FROM: Stuart Towns (09/11/13 1:00 AM PST)
SUBJECT: Propositional seems more important than interactional

I agree with Jeff that the thread about discrimination has a lot of cohesion -- many words and phrases like "native speaker" and "language" are repeated often. And it does seem to have propositional coherence because there is a lot of background knowledge that we have from being language teachers and scholars that is helpful for following and understanding the conversation.

Another example of an even more cohesive and straightforward discussion was the one about comic sans and other fonts. The relatively uncommon word "font" was used 39 times in 13 posts. This kept the conversation on-topic.

So how were the meanings of the posts in this thread different from each other? People brought up different aspects of fonts (letter shapes in different fonts, personal tastes with regards to fonts, relevant research in font readability, etc.), but every single post was about fonts.

An example of a thread where the topic changed is the one about Bill Clinton's accent. The first portion of the conversation was focused on formal vs informal speech, while the second was about monologues vs dialogues. In this case, the topic shift was clearly marked by Jariya when she said, "Well, I would like to add another point to ponder... " Apparently everyone thought that the point was worthy of pondering, as it sparked a lively and interesting discussion. There was still some cohesion between all of the posts as the topic of formal vs informal was still there, but the main focus of the conversation was shifted.

From just a cursory view at a few threads, it seems to me that between posts, propositional coherence and cohesive devices are more important than interactional coherence. Does anyone have any examples of interactional coherence between posts, other than the example Aj. Richard gave of ending a post with a question like this one?

[admin]

FROM: Daron Loo (09/12/13 3:46 PM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Propositional seems more important than interactional

Stuart, what does interactional coherence mean? Wouldn't it be the same as what you mentioned - responding to the matter at hand, which would mean discussing the same 'topic', possibly from different angles.

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FROM: Stuart Towns (09/20/13 2:37 AM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Propositional seems more important than interactional

Apologies for my late reply, Daron.

Propositional coherence is probably what you think of when you hear "coherence", as it can be seen from the way the text is organized. For example, a paragraph that moves from a general idea to specific ones. Or the use of pronouns to refer to a noun that was previously mentioned.

Interactional coherence, on the other hand, can be a little bit harder to discern because it comes from what Lautamatti (1990) calls "a meaningful chain of communicative acts". The coherence comes from the speech acts, for example, a question and an answer.

According to Lautamatti, propositional coherence is usually associated with written text and interactional coherence is associated with spoken text. An online forum is an interesting case because it is written, yet it is similar to a conversation in some ways, albeit with very long turns for each speaker.

I went back to look at that thread on fonts again, and again I didn't see much interactional coherence, other than questions and answers. For example, towards the end I asked you (Daron) about what font you like and why, and then in the next post you answered. There is also some propositional coherence here as well.

In the next exchange, Dougal said, "features and word translations are more important than font choice" to which I jokingly responded "Blasphemy!" So in this case, there doesn't seem to be much propositional coherence, but there is interactional coherence in the communicative acts used. Dougal make a statement, and I responded with a vehement objection to the statement.

Interestingly (to me) these four exchanges right in a row together have a very serious coherence break:

* Stuart: Question
* Daron: Answer
* Dougal: Statement referring to a statement 4 turns before
* Stuart: Objection to Dougal's statement

Unfortunately, Nicenet's nested threads only go 1 level deep. A discussion board with multiple depths would provide an additional layer of interactional coherence by grouping the sub-threads in the correct order and indenting each new level of the discussion.


Reference

Lautamatti, L. (1990). Coherence in spoken and written discourse. In U. Connor & A. M. Johns (Eds.), Coherence in writing: Research and pedagogical perspectives (pp. 31-39). Alexandria, VA: TESOL

[admin]

FROM: Daron Loo (09/23/13 8:23 AM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Propositional seems more important than interactional

Stuart's response reminded me of Gricean's Maxims, which we are so expertly flouting by not being coherent in our responses - but do we need to always overtly remain on a linear, logical, easy-to-follow online discussion thread?

I will not talk about Gricean's Maxims because Richard had that covered in one of his courses a few semesters back. Instead, I will be looking at the social dimensions involved in computer mediated communication. After re-reading everyone's contribution, I remembered a couple of papers I read in preparation to do a project for CAAL (which I didn't do in the end). These papers talked about several considerations worth making in ensuring a 'sustained' online communication. For instance, Mazzolini and Maddison (2002) discussed the effects of teaching presence (of the instructor) in online discussions, Zhan and Mei (2013) discussed academic self-concept and social presence of forum contributors/online students. Some related observations from these two different studies are:

1. discussions extended more if instructor was present; however, there were mixed feelings by the students towards the (heavy) presence of the instructor
2. students had a higher level of social presence in face-to-face learning environment, and not necessarily those in a CMC environment; this brings about the assumption that learning through CMC needs to be guided

In another study, Garrison and Cleveland-Innes (2005) mentioned a few issues relevant to our threads. First, interaction doesn't necessarily imply coherence (which we are showing through our threads). They further elaborate this matter by distinguishing interaction and communication presence with a community of inquiry - this is I think what we are trying to achieve on Nicenet.

Garrison and Cleveland (2005) argued that interaction (responding to each other's questions) for the sake of being 'communicatively present' does not necessarily show the depth of cognition or the sustainability (coherence) of a discussion. Nonetheless, I don't think any of us here are responding to each other's comments just to be communicatively present. I do think that we are reflecting what Garrison and Cleveland (2005) claim to be a conducive online learning environment - a community of inquiry, where exploration and critique of different ideas are presented to encourage critical inquiry.

That said, another issue which I think is worth adding to this discussion about the coherence of our discussion thread is the asynchronous nature of CMC, which I think may have an influence on how we manage the discussion.

References:
Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2005). Facilitating cognitive presence in online learning: interaction is not enough. The American Journal of Distance Education, 19(3), pp. 133-148.

Mazzolini, M. & Maddison, S. (2003). Sage, guide or ghost? The effect of instructor intervention on student participation in online discussion forums. Computers and Education, 40, pp. 237-253.

Zhan, Z. & Mei, H. (2013). Academic self-concept and social presence in face-to-face and online learning: perceptions and effects on students' learning achievement and satisfaction across environments. Computers and Education, 69, pp. 131-138.

[admin]

FROM: Richard Watson Todd (09/26/13 8:53 PM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Propositional seems more important than interactional

An interesting contribution that brings up a topic we should have discussed a long time ago - what's the point of Nicenet? To hopefully extend the discussion though my "(heavy) presence", the idea of "community of inquiry" strikes me as important and useful. I agree that most posts aren't just showing communicative presence (indeed, given the low numbers who contribute regularly, I would hope for more communicative presence than there is now); rather, contributors are exploring ideas together and, in some cases, doing little bits of mini-research to justify their ideas. One issue, however, is that nearly all threads are initiated by only three people, and the number of people making regular contributions is less than ten. To create a community of inquiry, should something be done about this? Should I be encouraging (forcing?) colleagues and students to be more active on Nicenet or will this just lead to people posting for communicative presence to asuage my feelings? Basically, do you have any suggestions for how a community of inquiry through the medium of Nicenet can best be promoted?

To attempt to create some coherence between this posting and earlier ones on this thread, the messages on this thread are now clearly manifesting topic drift whereby there are still some links (both overt and implicit) with preceding messages, but the overall topic has shifted to something completely different from the original one.

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FROM: Stuart Towns (09/27/13 12:52 AM PST)
SUBJECT: RE: Propositional seems more important than interactional

First of all, thank you Daron for a very educational and thought-provoking post!

To address Aj. Richard's questions of how to increase participation on Nicenet, it would be helpful if we could figure out why people do not use it, and then come up with solutions to these problems. But first, I should talk about why I really enjoy using an online discussion board to communicate with others in the department.

As some of you know, I am an instructor in an master's program at an online university in the US. At this US university, a Discussion Board similar to Nicenet is one of the most important parts of every course, and around 1/3 of the students' overall course grade comes from their work on the Discussion Board. Every week, a question is posted to the class, and students must write a response using the readings from that week (with proper APA citations) by Wednesday. Then, by Friday each week, they must reply to at least two other student postings. As an instructor, I am required to make at least 4 "substantial and academic" replies to students per week as well.

The Discussion Board at my US university is great for several reasons, such as:

1) It teaches students how to be academic researchers.
2) It gives students the chance to practice their academic writing.
3) It teaches students how to formulate arguments and defend their positions.
4) It is a great way to focus on various interesting areas of the content that are not covered in other assignments.
5) Instructors learn new things from the students too!

And I have to say that I am always impressed with my students' writing, researching and analytical skills. They really put a lot of effort into their work, and I know that they learn a lot from it. The Discussion assignments are challenging and time-consuming, but my students are in school to learn and to improve themselves, so the Discussion is great for that.

For better or worse, though, the motivation for my US students (and me as an instructor) to participate in the weekly Discussion is heavily extrinsic, not intrinsic. But the extrinsic motivation is absolutely necessary. Participation levels on Nicenet is perhaps the example of what happens when you only rely on intrinsic motivation. Low attendance of audience members (i.e., non-presenters) at Research Discussions and Clusters is another example.

So unfortunately, if we want participation rates in our academic community to increase, there has to be some extrinsic motivation applied. Nicenet is coming up on it's 5th anniversary in use in our department, and so the participation rates will not magically increase if nothing changes. If the department thinks that participation in an academic community is important, then it should take steps to extrinsically motivate all to participate in it.

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FROM: Dougal Graham (09/28/13 8:10 AM PST) SUBJECT:

Well, I wrote out a long post here, and then Nicenet logged me out and I lost it. I don't know if that affects participation rates or not. Anyway, here is a completely new and different post from the one I had written.

I think that there are a few problems for participation. Firstly, there's Stuart's issue of extrinsic motivation. Another one is that there are not that many new discussion issues posted.

Looking back on the top 6 items currently, only one of them was intended as a discussion topic (this one). The other 5 are either posting potentially useful resources, or in one case a request for suggestions (not discussion). Of course, any topic can become a discussion, eg the Google topic ended up generating some discussion, but basically, not much discussion is likely to happen with those sorts of topics. Then, we have actual discussion topics such as this one, "Being Aware of Research Purposes" and "Do We Really Need English Teachers". Generally, these types of posts seem to garner more comments, although not always, as in the case of "Do We Really Need English Teachers".

Also, if we look at the frequency with which new posts are made, it's less than once a week. This means that it is easy for people to lose the habit of checking Nicenet. If there are always new posts, even if I don't have a reply, I'll be checking back. There ought to be a new thread explicitly seeking discussion at least once a week. Of course this is a classic example of how a web community needs a certain minimum participation, without which it is very difficult to attract enough people to keep it constantly engaging and on the tip-of-the-brain.

I think Stuart's comment about motivation is important, but also I think a key was that their discussion topics are linked to what they have been studying in class, meaning that they will all have a similar level of background knowledge, and the topic will be fresh in their minds, as well possibly as some unanswered questions that came up in class.

TLDR: We need more posts, they need to be explicitly discussion-seeking posts, and ideally they should be related to something that people are either already fairly familiar with, or that they have recently read about or studied, so that the topic is one that will seem accessible to them. Maybe this should be part of the grade, for your classes, Richard?

PS: Does anyone have any idea about how decisions are made about whom to reply to when posting on Nicenet? I bring this up because I noticed that Stuart's first comment seemed at first like a reply to Jeffrey, but he posted it as a thread-level reply, while Daron's post about Not Gricean Maxims was potentially a good place to start a new thread, but it was posted as a reply to Stuart. Maybe this is an argument in favor of completely unnested discussions.

[admin]

FROM: Dougal Graham (09/28/13 8:25 AM PST) SUBJECT: RE:

I also thought it might be good to have a new topic be posted after each research discussion. Especially since we have 2 separate ones now, a topic for each with a brief summary, and maybe some questions might generate some useful discussion and encourage the presenters to be active here. You could even require each presenter to make a short post with a summary and some questions for discussion.