A Dialogic Action Perspective on Open Collective Inquiry in Online Forums.

Abstract

In today's networked environment, online forums emerge as a popular form of social structures that have greater opportunities for learning in various organizational contexts.A plethora of studies have investigated the phenomenon to identify factors of its success, such as individual characteristics and organizational structure.However, how such factors shape collaborative learning processes and influence outcomes has been largely understudied.Furthermore, the learning process in online forums has been simply presumed as a kind of general organizational learning, despite its unique situation of learning from strangers.This dissertation study focuses on online forums' highly motivated for problem-based learning and explores a dynamic process of such learning, namely open collective inquiry (OCI).Presuming that dialogue embodies open collective inquiry processes, this study investigated characteristics of OCI dialogues that influence distinct types of inquiry outcomes using a grounded theory method.In particular, the current study highlights what participants do for OCI and how they do it through their dialogue.Based on distinct purposes for dialogic actions, six action domains were identified that constitute OCI processes: action domains to initiate inquiry, to maintain commitment, to guide inquiry process, to frame a problem, to negotiate solutions, and to confirm workability.These action domains were interrelated to shape

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