DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
In this chapter, the findings are first summarized and discussed in depth to address the research questions of this study. Then, a summary of the study finding, pedagogical implications, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are presented in the conclusion of the study.
Discussion
The findings of the current study are discussed to address the three research questions in this study.
Research question 1: How do community members mediate their actions in the online English learning community?
The study indicated that the community members mediated their actions to participate in the learning community. The analysis of the four participants’ entries revealed that their mediated actions can be categorized into six types. Among the six types of mediated actions, they mediated to answer questions most of time. Although the four participants were all active to participate in the online community, they performed differently in the online learning community. Furthermore, the results of the study also indicated that the frequency of their mediated actions decreased over the time they joined the online learning community.
As Wenger (1998) suggested, participation involves actions as well as
relationships and connections to others in the community. In this study, the results of the online observation indicated that the actions of the four participants included (1) answering questions, (2) contributing knowledge, (3) asking questions, and (4)
suggesting posting rules while the connections with other community members contained (5) showing appreciation and (6) chatting. Among the six types of mediated actions, they mostly answered questions in the learning community. According to Petersen, Divitini, and Chabert (2008), a long-term relationship between individuals and their actions forms their roles in the community. Their actions explicated that all the four participants played the role of knowledge contributors in the online learning community. By playing the role of knowledge contributors, the four participants got achievement and felt content from their online participation. Thus, through the gain of achievement, they kept participating in the community and became active community members in the online learning community.
In addition to answering questions, the four participants also posted entries to appreciate others’ answers and chat with community members as friends in the
English learning community. However, it was found that some participants performed particularly in their participation with their distinctive subject. For example,
Participant A was the only participant who suggested posting rules to the community members and initiated messages containing the information of English phrases or learning resources. Only Participant D asked questions about English learning. As Booth (2011) indicated, members brought their stories, their experiences, and their expertise to the community. The ongoing interaction between their subject and the community shaped their specific actions in the community. As shown in the study, different participants who brought their own experiences performed different types of mediated actions in the learning community. The results of the study imply that the distinctive subject agency is one of the crucial factor in community members’
mediated actions in online learning communities.
With regard to the change of mediated actions over time, the online observation showed that the mediated actions of the four participants decreased through the time
they joined the Facebook page. At the beginning of their participation, they invested time and effort to get involved in the discussion of the learning community. The frequency of Participant A and B’s mediated actions occurred most at the first stage.
In addition, the frequency of Participant C and D’s mediated actions rapidly grew from the first stage and reached a peak at the second stage. However, all of their mediated actions decreased sharply at the third stage. As time went by, the four participants did not get involved in the community as actively as they did at the beginning of their participation. The change of their mediated actions through the three stages echoes the findings of previous studies which indicated that online communities may undergo life cycles of development. (Brown, 2001;
Haythornthwaite, Kazmer, Robins, & Shoemaker, 2000; Lock, 2002; Schwier, 2002;
Wilson, Ludwig-Hardman, Thornam, & Dunlap, 2004).
Schwier (2002) suggested that when learning communities emerge, they generally go through three stages: a formative stage, a maturity stage, and a stage of decline. The formative stage in the life of an online learning community is
characterized by the attraction of new members. Members start their participation in the community. During the formative stage, the participation of community members is tentative as they try to communicate and make connections with other community members. When community members’ participation becomes steady, the community proceeds to the mature stage of life. At this point, some online communities will be challenged to undertake conflicts. Then, old members whose needs are satisfied leave the community. The life cycle of the learning community develops into the stage of decline. Overall, the life of the online learning community in the current study was compatible with the notion of the online community life cycle.
The results imply that the maintenance of online learning communities is a difficult task. When educators apply online learning communities in their classroom,
they need to try their best to promote the development of online communities and maintain the online communities alive. For example, Bryce-Davis (2001) proposed
―ringers‖ as a critical feature for building and maintaining learning communities.
Ringers are special activities or surprise events which renew community members’
interest or motivation to participate in the community. Thus, ringers can keep online learning communities awake. With a specific activity by the major moderator of an online learning community, the life cycle of the community may last longer.
Research question 2: How do underlying factors interact with their mediated actions through the process of engaging in the online English learning community?
From an activity theory perspective, the four participants’ activity systems present factors influencing their mediated actions in the learning community. Three components of their activity systems, including the subject, the object, and the
community were found to be mostly influential in their process of participation in the English learning community.
The interwoven relationship among subject, object, and mediating artifacts The subject and objects were found to be interwoven together to affect each other and also influence the use of mediating artifacts which individuals used to achieve their objects. The findings indicate that each participant brought with their growing background, personalities, and learning experiences in their participation of the learning community. Their distinctive agency made them have different motives to participate in the online learning community. Thus, with different motives, they set different objects for their participation which influenced their mediated actions in the community.
Participants’ agency influenced the object they set for participating in the online community. Because of their different backgrounds, their motives to be in part of the
community triggered them to set different objects. For example, Participant A who enjoyed bantering with people actively participated in the online learning community because he wanted to get fun from interaction with community members. With the influence of his personalities, Participant A mediated his actions to chat with community members in the online learning community. His object of participation was having fun by playing with languages and chatting with community members.
This object directed him to interact with community members a lot. During the process of his participation, he got a lot of fun from the interaction which made him keep participating in the community. However, when his object could not be achieved, he gradually stopped participating in the community. As for Participant B and D who were English learners in Taiwan, they participated in the online English learning community to have more learning opportunities out of class. As English learners, they set their object to learn more English phrases that could advance their English
proficiency. Different from other participants, Participant C was a special case which had a unique motive to participate in the learning community. Participant C was eager to join a Chinese community in her life. The Facebook page provided her a place where she could interact with Chinese community members. Her object of
participating in the discussion of the Facebook page was to make Chinese friends and build a Chinese community in which she could heal her homesickness. After
participating in the Facebook page for several months, she made a lot of friends from the Facebook page. They formed their own social network on their Facebook, not in the language learning community. At the end, she did not visit the Facebook page since she formed her own community in Facebook, which was not for language learning but for social interaction.
Holding different subject agency and having different objects, participants chose different mediating artifacts as the tools in their participation. Language was one
mediating artifact to interact with community members. With their own language proficiency, language learning experiences, and personal background, they chose different languages as their main tool to write Facebook entries. Participant A, B, and D tended to use English more than Chinese because they believed that the use of Chinese might hinder the learning of English. Therefore, they avoided using Chinese in their posts if it was necessary. The belief also influenced their rule of language use in this English learning community. The choice of their language use reflected their belief of English learning. However, Participant C was glad to use Chinese to interact with community members because using Chinese made her feel a sense of belonging since she had lived in the U.S and not spoken Chinese for years in her daily life and she considered Chinese as a tool to interact with Chinese whom she can relate to. The use of Chinese reminded her about her Chinese identity. She chose Chinese as her communicative tool to achieve her object of getting involved in the online
community.
Internet tools were other mediating artifacts in participants’ participation in the learning community. Participants used Internet tools to help them achieve their goal in their participation of the English learning community. The object of Participant B and D was to learn English by answering questions of community members and reading entries in the Facebook page. In particular, for Participant D, he considered answering questions as a challenge of his English ability. By trying to answer members’
questions, they practiced and advanced their English. When they saw a question which they also wanted to know, they used the Internet tools, such as search engines and online dictionary, to find out the answer. Because of their object of learning English, they tried to answer community members’ questions with the help of Internet tools.
The interactive relationship among contextual factors within the community In addition to the influence of subject agency and object, the factor of community played an influential role in participants’ participation in the learning community.
First, although different participants had their own rule of language use in the learning community, community members made an influence on participants’ rule of language use. Some community members asked participant A to use more Chinese in his entries in order to make his answers more clear. Because of community members’
suggestion, Participant A changed his rule of language use. He started to add some Chinese to his entries.
Second, the appreciation from community members was a strong motive for participants to keep participating in the discussion of the online learning community.
Furthermore, the joy from bantering with community members made participants continuously visit the learning community and contribute more in the discussion.
Participants developed the personal relationships such as trust and friendship with community members whom they interacted and bantered with. Previous studies (Cabrera & Cabrera, 2005; Hewitt, 2005) indicated that personal relationship resulted in shared understandings and community feelings. Both of which increased the contribution in the online discussion.
Third, the interaction with community members influenced the division of labor which affected their participation. In this study, the four participants answered
community members’ questions. They provided answers to the community members actively and generously. Based on the interaction with other community members, they formed a relation of providers and receivers in the community. Under the relation of providers and receivers, they established their relationship and power with others.
Since Participant D sometimes asked questions in the community, he was in a lower
status in the division of labor. The lower status made him concern more when posting messages in the Facebook page. He was afraid of being criticized by the community members whose English ability was better than him. Gradually, he started to reduce his participation and contributed fewer entries either asking or responding questions in the online discussion. The influence of community members on participation was in line with the findings highlighted in previous literature. Murphy and Coleman (2004) suggested that community members stopped contributing if they felt
threatened by other community members or if the tone of the discussion became rude to the community members. In Participant D’s case, the negative relationship with others reduced his willingness of keeping participation in the discussion of the learning community.
To sum up, the factors which influenced the participants’ actions in the current study were complex, and they were interwoven together. Through the lens of activity theory, the complex interrelationship involving participants’ subject agency,
contextual factors within the community, and their actions in the online learning community are brought to the surface. It is found that participants’ subject agency was a prerequisite factor in determining their actions within the learning community.
Participants’ motives were based on individual agency which influenced the set of objectives and decided the use of mediating artifacts and their mediated actions.
Additionally, contextual factors which interacted within the community also made an effect in participants’ participation in the community. The results of the study
confirmed Engeström’s (1987) notion of activity theory which proposed that internal-mental activities cannot be understood when analyzed in isolation from external activities (Levin & Wadmany, 2008). Therefore, under such theory, it is suggested that the factors assisting or inhibiting community members’ participation
are developed as a result of the interactive relationship among community members and the related situations.
Research question 3: How do community members perceive the experiences of engaging in the online English learning community?
At first, the participants perceived the online experiences as an addiction. They enjoyed getting involved in the discussion with community members. They were fascinated by the sense of achievement from answering questions in the learning community. Through providing answers to community members, they gained friendship in the online learning community. Furthermore, the interaction with
community members gave participants a lot of support to continuously get involved in the discussion of the online learning community. Overall, participants considered the participation in the learning community as a positive experience which gave them a lot of joy. Because of this, participants invested tons of time and efforts in the learning community at the beginning of their participation. As found in previous studies
(McAlpine, Lockerbie, Ramsay, & Beaman, 2002; Vonderwell, 2003), the positive perception toward online experiences reflected community members’ highly motivation in participating in the discussion of the community.
Nevertheless, after participating in the community for several months, their perception toward the online experiences was not as satisfying as their perception at the beginning of their participation. They perceived the participation in the learning community as routine work without strong emotion and motivation. At the later stage of the online learning community, the Facebook page was full of spams since the Facebook page founder abandoned the Facebook page and did not administer the online community anymore. The lack of management in the community made participants suffer from the disordered community. For participants, the online
learning community was not perceived as a way to get a sense of achievement and to gain friendship anymore since there were fewer entries and less interaction on the Facebook page.
According to previous research of Cheung and Hew (2004), Vonderwell (2003), and Wyatt (2005), the lack of member interaction in the community made participants decrease their time in participating in the online discussion and interacting with community members. In a study of Cheung and Hew (2004), it was found that
community members ceased to contribute when they received no immediate response or comments to their entries in online discussion. Furthermore, according to Feenberg (1987), the delay caused community members to feel that they were speaking into a vacuum. Therefore, gradually, participants had lower motivation and interest in the participation of the discussion. In conclusion, the lack of management made the community members have difficulties in participating in the online discussion. Then, the disappearance of community members’ responses or comments wore down members’ initial excitement and caused them to leave the community gradually.
Conclusion
In the last part of this chapter, the summary of the study is first presented and followed by several pedagogical implications on the basis of the findings of the study.
Subsequently, the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are provided.
Summary of the Study
This study explored four community members’ participation in one online English learning community and their perceptions of the online experiences. By various qualitative data collection techniques, including online observations,
participants’ Facebook page entries, and semi-structured interviews, this study tended to carefully elicit the four community members’ mediated actions and the underlying factors influencing their process of participation. An activity theory approach was employed as the analytical framework to map out the complex relationships among individuals’ six components, namely subject, object, mediating artifacts, community, rules, and division of labor, within their activity systems regarding their participation in the online learning community. Furthermore, it also examined their perceptions toward the online experiences and how their perceptions changed through the time they joined the online English learning community.
The results of the study indicated that the mediated actions of the four
participants included (1) answering questions, (2) showing appreciation, (3) chatting, (4) contributing knowledge, (5) asking questions, and (6) suggesting posting rules.
Among the six types of mediated actions, answering questions was the most significant mediated action in their online participation. However, the Facebook entries showed that different participants had particular mediated actions in the learning community. Furthermore, from an activity theory perspective on community members’ participation, it is found that many factors, including their personal agency, the objects they set for their participation, and contextual factors, interwoven by each other influenced the for participants’ mediated actions. Shaped by their individual backgrounds and learning experiences, participants carried their own stories to
participate in the online learning community. The subject agency, learning experience, influenced the objects they set for participation in the community and influenced their use of artifacts. Additionally, contextual factors from the community where
participants were situated also largely influenced their mediated actions in the online learning community. The appreciation from other community members encouraged participants to keep getting involved in the online discussion while the criticism from