Analysing interactions in online discussions through social network analysis.

Background: Online discussion is one of the commonly used tools to enhance students' interactions and engagements in online courses, but it is not clear how social presence in online discussions impacts students' learning and what kinds of interactions we should encourage. Social network analysis provides a new methodology to investigate how social interactions in online discussions influence learning. Objectives: The study aims to identify students' online discussion interaction patterns and investigate how they are related to students' learning performance in an asynchronous course. Methods: Students who enrolled in an asynchronous undergraduate course were invited to participate in this study. Participants' online discussion participation data were collected from six online discussions from an asynchronous online course. Data were analysed using social network analysis methods as well as correlation and regression analysis. Results and Conclusions: We found that statistically significant positive correlations existed between learning performance and out‐degree and closeness, respectively, which provided evidence to support that social interactions in online discussions have positive correlations with learning. We also found that out‐closeness contributes to students' learning performance. The results of the study imply that knowledge construction occurs mainly in the centre of the outgoing network. By interpreting this study's results with the social construction of knowledge model, we conclude that knowledge construction mainly happens in reading and commenting on others' posts by internalizing and integrating external useful information from others. Implications: While numerous studies have emphasized the importance of interactions in online discussions or collaborative learning, there are limited studies on what kind of interactions we should encourage and what role students play in knowledge construction. The results of this study provide evidence that knowledge construction happens when students are reading and commenting on others' posts, which includes a hidden process of integrating external useful information into their own understanding. Practical strategies are provided to encourage students to be expansive and actively reach out to other students. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Vygotsky's social development theory stresses the interaction of interpersonal, cultural‐historical, and individual factors as the key to human development.The interactions among students in asynchronous online discussions play an important role in higher phases of knowledge creation.Some studies have investigated the relationship between knowledge construction and centrality measurements of networks in asynchronous online discussions using social network analysis method, but the results are mixed. What this paper adds: This study investigated the interaction patterns at a deep level by using social network analysis techniques. The three main interaction patterns were found in six online discussions of one online asynchronous course over one semester.The interaction patterns of the networks of these online discussions indicate that the majority of students are not expansive enough; moreover, the network density, transitivity, and clustering coefficient are low.Using social network analysis, this study has found that out‐degree and closeness measurements of the online discussion networks are positively correlated with students' academic performance. This study also found that out‐closeness contributes to students' learning performance. The results of this study imply that outgoing networks play a more crucial role than incoming networks in students' learning performance. It appears that knowledge construction happens mainly in the centre of the outgoing network. Implications for practice and/or policy: Knowledge construction happens when students are reading and commenting on others' posts, which includes a hidden process of integrating external useful information into their own understanding. This process may externalize as reading and commenting on others' posts in online discussions.Expansively interacting with others in online discussions plays a vital role in knowledge construction. It may be beneficial to encourage more student interactions in online discussions, especially encouraging students to be expansive and actively reach out to other students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]