Factors Influencing Interaction and Cognitive Engagement in Online Discussions in an Undergraduate Course of Nursing

Educational technology is now widely used in education and offers a great support in distance education. This research paper is a second part of the study which analysed the types and levels of cognitive engagement; this paper has identified the factors that affected on the cognitive engagement in the online discussion forums, within undergraduate nursing students of post basic nursing curriculum, in the course of Professional development Leadership and Management. Moreover, this was one of the subsidiary questions, focusing on possible contributing factors for variation in the interaction pattern. The study was of retrospective qualitative paradigm utilizing discourse analysis to understand the student's cognitive engagement in the online discussion forum, 24 students provided written consent to participate. The data were collected by online posts and focus group discussion. The analysis was done by utilizing Zhu (2006) framework of cognitive engagement and it was revealed that there was a low level of engagement. The Focus Group Discussion (FGD) reported that due to new mode of teaching, being very flexible, technology shutdown and less facilitation of faculty are the contributing factors. Thus, it was recommended that, more awareness is needed for students using online interaction, informing course expectations and feed forward for more effective participation.