The effect of discussion protocol and modeling example on students’ participation, quality, and perceptions of asynchronous online discussion

This study examined the effects of two scaffolding strategies: (a) discussion protocol and (b) modeling examples on students’ active participation, quality of online discussion and student perceptions of online discussion in an undergraduate online course. The results proposed that using both discussion protocol and modeling examples could improve students' qualitative participation and higher quality of posts, but no significant influence on students’ quantitative participation and perceptions of online discussion.