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In this study, we work towards a strategy to measure and enhance the quality of interactions in discussion forums at scale. We present a machine learning (ML) model which identifies the phase of cognitive presence exhibited by a student's post and suggest future applications of such a model to help online students develop higher-order thinking. We collect discussion forum transcript data from two online courses: CS1301 (an introductory computer programming MOOC) offered by edX and CS6601 (a graduate course on artificial intelligence) which uses the Piazza online discussion tool. We manually code a random sample of students' posts based on the Community of Inquiry coding scheme and explore trends in cognitive presence within and across the courses. We further use this coded data to analyze the relationship between students' observed cognitive presence and course grades. In terms of testing and building an ML model, we use a Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers model that uses a deep learning technique to train large text corpus and fine-tune the language model. Our results suggest that deeper cognitive engagement with course concepts, as expressed by higher cognitive presence, are associated with better learning outcomes for students in both course settings. Our ML approach achieves 92.5% accuracy on the classification task, motivating the use of ML for instructional interventions in online courses. We expect that our research study will not only contribute to extending the literature on cognitive presence but also have a beneficial impact on online instructors or curriculum developers in higher education.

This study focuses on the recent emergency move from face-to-face to remote teaching in higher education due to the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19). This mixed-method study uses data collected from an anonymous online survey as well as case study interviews. We aim to examine how this novel phenomenon affected the perceptions and teaching experiences among faculty members who previously taught courses on campus and then suddenly switched to remote delivery of their courses during Spring 2020. Specifically, we explore how faculty adapted their instruction quickly during the semester and how they perceived the emergency transition to remote delivery. Our findings suggest that the extent to which faculty perceived remote teaching as easy or satisfying is closely associated with their degree of adjustment, their level of comfort with remote teaching, and whether their course was suitable for online instruction. Additionally, faculty reported benefiting more from resources for remote teaching provided within their college, compared to other university-wide resources. The study concludes by drawing some inferences about important factors that higher education institutions need to consider to effectively support faculty's varying needs and instructional practices in an online environment.

Mounting uncertainties regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and the popularity of social media created fertile grounds for conspiracy theories to flourish, leading to a global "infodemic." We examine information sources used to support five popular COVID-19-related conspiracy theories on Twitter to identify (1) their primary building blocks, (2) similarities and dissimilarities across COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and (3) the relationship between type of message content and content distribution. Findings show that statements of belief and of malicious purpose were most popular, followed by conspirators, authentication, and secretive actions. However, only malicious purposes and secretive actions messages successfully predicted higher distribution of content, while, for instance, content authentication showed a negative relation. Furthermore, the type of conspiracy theories matters. Mega-theories, such as Agenda 21 and QAnon, incorporated less statements of Belief. COVID-19 vaccine–related theories focused more on authentication, while QAnon highlighted the conspirators behind the pandemic. Conceptual and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on student development cautions that social responsibility attitudes may stagnate or decline as students proceed through college. Given the importance of students' future professional obligations to society, identifying ways to reverse this trend is crucial. In turn, an important aim of this study, situated at a large public university, is to evaluate the prospects of community engagement as a strategy to foster professional social responsibility development. The study uses longitudinal results from an instrument known as the Generalized Professional Responsibility Assessment (GPRA) to assess personal and professional social responsibility attitudes. The study's sample includes 128 students who completed a survey both in 2017, when entering college, and in 2019, when near the midpoint of college. Findings indicate that social responsibility attitudes remain stagnant, and that students over that time period attach more importance to salary as compared to helping people when considering job priorities. Yet, results reveal that increased community engagement predicts growth in social responsibility attitudes, even when controlling for students' pre-college social responsibility attitudes and demographic characteristics. Further, a novel contribution of this study is a focus on two sub-categories of community engagement: discipline-based and peer-based. Discipline-based community engagement appears to foster professional aspects of social responsibility, while community engagement experiences tied to peer interaction appear to exert greater impacts for non-White students. An observation derived from the study is that community engagement, particularly when it connects to a student's discipline or draws on peer influences, could be an effective strategy to promote social responsibility development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although competent argumentative writing is important for academic success and daily life, it is difficult to teach, especially in middle schools where English is taught as a foreign language (EFL). Previous research has indicated that extensive reading or writing improves the descriptive writing skills of EFL students. However, it is not certain whether the positive effect of extensive reading or writing applies to other domains such as argumentative writing, which is demanding but crucial. In this study, we explored whether the argumentative and descriptive writing skills of middle school EFL students could develop naturally, i.e., via extensive reading or writing, without direct instruction, using descriptive writing as a comparative variable. A total of 297 EFL middle school students in South Korea were divided into three groups: the first group read books (n = 119), the second wrote about various topics (n = 117), and the third (control) received extended regular instruction (n = 61) over two semesters. Pre- and post-writing tests assessed argumentative and descriptive writing. Our results indicated that reading and writing exercises significantly improved argumentative and descriptive writing competence, but regular instruction did not. However, descriptive writing improved more than argumentative writing, particularly in terms of organization, content, and mechanics. Extensive reading or writing may constitute a feasible option for improving general writing skills. However, more context-specific methods to enhance adolescent argumentative writing in EFL schools are required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current views of literacy have expanded to encompass how individuals in sociocultural systems make meaning as they "read" and "write" their world. From this view, the work of students involved in pursuing deeper understandings as they discuss course concepts is a literacy act. This study focused on the inquiry and questioning moves of graduate students as they participated in nine online classroom discussions about course concepts. A coding scheme adapted from several researchers interested in inquiry and knowledge co-construction was applied to the students' comments posted in synchronous online discussion. Findings indicated that students used various inquiry moves to engage actively with course ideas, with some moves more popular than others, and with some students using a wider variety of moves than others. Although the most common moves were of those reacting to others' comments with an interpretation, supporting evidence, or more thoroughly explaining a previously shared idea, threads often developed into more sophisticated inquiry exchanges through "inferences" and "critical evaluations." Implications are offered for the use of an inquiry lens on the contributions of students involved in online classroom discussion as a way to highlight students' active, meaningful knowledge construction.

Despite distinct neural representation of what, where, and when information, studies of individual differences in episodic memory have neglected to test the three components separately. Here, we used a componential episodic memory task to measure cognitive profiles across a wide age range and in Alzheimer disease (AD) and to examine the role of theta oscillations in explaining performance. In Experiment 1, we tested a group of 47 young adults (age 21–30 years, 21 women) while recording their scalp EEG. A separate behavioral experiment (Experiment 2) was performed in 42 older adults (age 66–85 years, 29 women) and in a group of 16 AD patients (age 80–90 years, 12 women). In Experiment 1, K-means clustering based on behavioral data resulted in three "cognotypes" whose memory profiles showed corresponding differences in their EEG markers: What and where memory depended on frontal theta power and when memory depended on theta modulation by temporal distance between retrieved items. In Experiment 2, healthy older adults showed three cognotypes similar to those found in younger adults; moreover, AD patients had an overlapping profile with one specific cognotype, characterized by marked difficulties in when memory. These findings highlight the utility of componential episodic memory tests and cognotyping in understanding individual strengths and vulnerabilities in age-related neurocognitive decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]