Digital Dialogue: Emancipatory Dialogical Practices in Virtual Collaborative Problem-Based Learning

Societal shifts increasingly demand that people work across social and geographic borders, often virtually, to solve complex problems in the areas of education, environment, healthcare, poverty, technology innovation and ethics, and more. This collaboration requires critical and emancipatory dialogue and problem-solving. This qualitative multiple case study examined two online professional studies graduate-level courses that employed collaborative problem-based learning to engage with social-justice related themes, one that explored inclusive educational practices, and one that explored the negotiation of global environmental treaties. The purpose of this study was to investigate how students engaged in emancipatory dialogical practices and determine the factors that influenced their ability to engage with one another and with the content in humanizing and emancipatory ways. Paulo Freire's (1970) writing on emancipatory dialogue as a transformative pedagogical practice served as a theoretical framework. Existing scholarship positions Paulo Freire's principles, including engagement with generative themes, problem-posing, dialogue, and praxis as well-aligned with the philosophical underpinnings of collaborative problem-based learning (Armitage, 2013). This study set out to gather empirical data that would explore the nature of that connection in an online professional studies course, including the ways that students engage in dialogue with one another and gain insight into how teachers can support the practice of productive emancipatory dialogue that would orient students toward critical consciousness and praxis in their lives. A qualitative cross-case analysis elucidated the characteristics of emancipatory dialogue as they played out in these two online courses, revealing insights into the way students engaged in generative theme exploration, problem-posing dialogical exchange, anti-dialogic exchange, and praxis. The findings also suggest internal and external factors that influence the degree and nature of liberatory group dialogue. Internal factors include community, accountability, evidence-based approach, and power balance, all of which support democratic group dynamics that foster dialogic exchange. External factors include instructor role, technology, scaffolding, and assignment design. These findings indicate a promising association between collaborative problem-based learning methods and fostering emancipatory dialogical practices among students. The themes reveal insights that may support educators in making pedagogical decisions that maximize the value of these practices and enable students to engage in emancipatory praxis beyond the classroom. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]