The Influence of Computer Communication Skills on Participation in a Computer Conferencing Course

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) courses are attracting students with weak computer communication skills. This study examined what happened to these students when they enrolled in a CMC course that required high levels of peer interaction. It was anticipated that students with weaker skills would miss important instructional events, have lower levels of task-relevant contributions, have less influence on group products, and engage in less demanding learning activities. But lack of technical skill had a marginal effect on participation, much less than prior knowledge of course content. The generalizability of this good news is limited by several contextual factors that supported participation of students with weak communication skills: student maturity, provision of a CMC coach, the ethos emerging from the structure and content of the course, and the low skill threshold required for participation.