Collaborate to Learn, Learn to Collaborate: Examining the Roles of Context, Community, and Cognition in Asynchronous Discussion

This study explored how asynchronous discussion supported by a Web-based learning system facilitated collaborative learning. The participants in this study consisted of the instructor, facilitators, and the students in a master's level course at a university in the south. Different sources of evidence were used in the study (individual/group interviews, and discussion board transcripts), and various methods were used to analyze the data (inductive analysis and discourse analysis). Three main categories with multiple themes emerged from the data as important for facilitating collaborative learning in online environments: context (i.e., structural support, active participation), community (i.e., a formation of membership, generation of social dialogue), and cognition (i.e., a social process of learning, communal facilitation). Implications for research and practice are described at the conclusion of the article.