Improving Community of Inquiry-based Asynchronous Online Discussion through Improving Conceptual Knowledge by Information-Organizing Preparatory Activity with Kit-Build Concept Mapping

Online discussion based on the community of inquiry (CoI) framework has received considerable popularity due to its potential benefits for enhancing problem solving skills and achieving deep understanding in the long term. However, it is challenging to make learners actively conduct a discussion using typical environments (e.g., asynchronous online forum). Information-organizing activity (IOA) has been proposed as one of the preparatory activities for preparing learners to actively conduct a discussion. Compared to the typical structured summary writing (SW), kit-build concept mapping (KBCM) has been proposed in past studies as an alternative IOA with the potential of fostering more cognitive presence and higher-level inquiry messages. However, such potentials were yet to be confirmed by a comparative study with a balanced sample size. Additionally, conceptual knowledge was hypothesized as influential in affecting learners’ inquiry. This follow-up study aims to confirm the potentials of KBCM as an alternative IOA for achieving better discussion. Moreover, this study contributes to investigating the relationship between conceptual knowledge and inquiry stages performed by learners to explain the effect of KBCM. By analyzing the discussion transcripts of 87 undergraduate computer science students from a public university who engaged in CoI-based discussions on linear algebra, this study found further evidence that KBCM is effective for fostering exploration, the evidence that a higher conceptual knowledge level after KBCM contributed to more exploration, and a tendency to transition between exploration and integration among KBCM learners.