Using chat as a complement to discussion board in small-group online seminars: How is student participation affected?

This paper examines how the use of synchronous chat, as a complement to asynchronous discussion board, affects participation in small-group online seminars. Questionnaires and interviews were used to study perceived social networks and students' sense of participation while electronic logs were used to analyse the interactions in the seminars. All measures indicate that the level of student participation was higher in the synchronous seminars. Two explanations were proposed. Firstly, the students felt that they worked together in the synchronous seminars. Secondly, there seemed to be too few students to get discussions started in the asynchronous setting. Moreover, some students dominated the asynchronous discussions while others dominated the synchronous discussions, which imply that combining asynchronous and synchronous media may enhance participation. It was also reflected on the consequence of culture on participation in the two types of seminars.