Content Analysis of Wiki Discussions for Knowledge Construction: Opportunities and Challenges

摘要

Research on several aspects of asynchronous online discussions in online and hybrid courses has been successfully conducted using content analysis in the past. With the increase in Web 2.0 and social media use in education, research on knowledge construction within newer virtual environments like blogs or wikis is just emerging. This study applies a well-known model of content analysis for knowledge construction to an educational wiki environment. Twelve graduate students' contributions to a wiki in a 14-week on-campus course on Web 2.0 technologies in education are analyzed. Results indicate that the wiki platform fosters collaborative knowledge construction and that is necessary to develop new frameworks to analyze content in new learning environments. Wiki environments provide opportunities for researchers to capture the process of collaboration, knowledge construction, and meta-cognition.