Students Perceptions of the Effectiveness of Discussion Boards What can we get from our students for a freebie point

TL;DR

This study explores students' perceptions of discussion boards in a computer science course, highlighting their attitudes, participation, and feedback on using Blackboard for collaborative learning and support.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into student attitudes and participation in discussion boards within a university course, emphasizing their understanding and willingness to engage.

Findings

Students showed understanding and maturity in using discussion boards.

Participation was high due to incentives like participation points.

Students provided positive feedback on the educational value of discussion boards.

Abstract

We investigate how the students think of their experience in a junior 300 level computer science course that uses blackboard as the underlying course management system. The discussion boards in Blackboard are heavily used for programming project support and to foster cooperation among students to answer their questions and concerns. A survey is conducted through blackboard as a voluntary quiz and the student who participated were given a participation point for their effort. The results and the participation were very interesting. We obtained statistics from the answers to the questions. The students also have given us feedback in the form of comments to all questions except for two only. The students have shown understanding, maturity and willingness to participate in pedagogy-enhancing endeavors with the premise that it might help their education and other people education as well.