Interaction in Online Learning

Swan, Karen. “Building Learning Communities in Online
Courses: the importance of interaction.” Education, Communication & Information 2.1 (2002): 23-49. Web. EBSCO. 23 May 2010.


Swan discusses three factors that are related to student perception of learning, factors that we have discussed in ENG 7/895: Student interaction with the content, with the instructor, and with each other. The article provides detail around two studies performed to analyze these factors as they related to asynchronous online courses provided by State University of New York (SUNY). The findings support the importance of interaction in online learning environments (23).

Interaction with content. Consistency in course structure was found to be relevant. In addition, fewer modules within a course resulted in higher satisfaction/learning. These allow for more clarity in the distance setting (30).

Interaction with instructor. Higher levels of learning and satisfaction were reported for online courses with the higher levels of interaction with the instructor. Interestingly, results did not suggest that class size or student achievement levels had a bearing on this factor (32).

Interaction with other students. The study found that discourse among students was an influential factor. It is notable, however, that there was a negative perception of grading based on group work. Swan indicates this may be due to difficulty in collaborating asynchronously or teacher expertise in structuring collaborative projects (33). I’ve had some challenging experiences in school and in the workplace with both situations, so while these may not be the only explanations, they are important issues in the planning process.

The second study in the article investigates the effect of “immediacy” behaviors in online learning based on the examination of one online asynchronous graduate course. Three kinds of social presence were evaluated: Affective (e.g. emotion, values, humor), interactive (e.g. acknowledgement, approval, invitation), and cohesive (e.g. greetings, group or course reference) (38).

The most prevalent affective indicator was paralanguage, the use of special text to indicate emotions or to emphasize something (i.e. emoticons, punctuation, bolding, etc.) Swan assumes logically these are needed to take the place of non-verbal and auditory cues. The next indicator used most often was self-disclosure. This generated the highest quantity and most in-depth student responses. Surprisingly, humor was used very little. I would have thought some humor would help with bonding and comfort-levels, but after reflecting on this, all my experiences have been with students who I’ve had some direct contact or experience with prior to the online relationship (39).

Cohesive indicators were the least used of verbal immediacy behaviors in the study; these behaviors were used more often in the beginning of the course and declined as time went on, likely as the group bonded (40).

The most frequently used interactive indicator was acknowledgement, meaning to respond to a student by quoting or paraphrasing their own message and indicating agreement, agreement, or approval.

Swan gives a realistic assessment that more research is needed, and acknowledges these studies are hard to generalize. Her research methods, criteria and data are explained comprehensively. She notes that the interaction factors overlap with and support each other, but that it can still be useful to examine them independently to shed light on interaction in online learning (23).