The Influence of Using Web 2.0 on Participation and Activities in an Online Discussion Forum

Abstract

The development of a new generation of the Internet, which provides opportunities for interactive participation and social networking activities, leads people to collaborate and share ideas among Internet users. These changes are considered to affect students who study through online environments. Especially students’ activities in an online discussion are considered to be affected by their use of newly developed web functions. So, the purpose of this study is to examine whether students’ usage of Web 2.0 functions are related to their social presence and affect participation and activities in an online discussion forum. The discussion forum was open for three months, and the questionnaire was distributed at the end of the semester. The results revealed that the usage of Web 2.0 was no relation to social presence and did not affect the participation in the discussion forum. However, when using social network analysis, two groups emerged; the core who actively participated and the periphery network group members. Web 2.0 usage was significantly different between the two groups. Also, the content analysis revealed that the core group posted more ‘cheerleading/affirming’ contents than the other group. In conclusion, it was found that Web 2.0 does not affect participation in the disc