Bond University

ePublications@bond
Faculty of Business Publications Faculty of Business

5-1-2012

The effect of synchronous and asynchronous

participation on students' performance in online
accounting courses
Keith Duncan
Bond University, Keith_Duncan@bond.edu.au

A. L. Kenworthy
Bond University, akenwort@bond.edu.au

Ray McNamara
Bond University, ray_mcnamara@bond.edu.au

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Recommended Citation
Keith Duncan, A. L. Kenworthy, and Ray McNamara. (2012) "The effect of synchronous and
asynchronous participation on students' performance in online accounting courses" Accounting
Education: An International Journal, 21 (4), 431-449: ISSN 0963-9284.

http://epublications.bond.edu.au/business_pubs/583

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The Effect of Synchronous and Asynchronous Participation on
Performance in Online Accounting Courses

Dr. Keith Duncan

Dr. Amy Kenworthy
Dr. Ray McNamara

Bond University, Faculty of Business

University Drive
Robina, QLD 4229
Australia

All correspondence should be addressed to the first author.

Contact information for Dr. Keith Duncan is:
Email: kduncan@bond.edu.au
Phone: 07-55952238; Fax: 07-55951160

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 The Effect of Synchronous and Asynchronous Participation on
Performance in Online Accounting Courses

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the relationship between MBA students’ performance and participation
in two online environments: a synchronous forum (chat room) and an asynchronous forum
(discussion board). The quality and quantity of students’ participation is used to predict their
final exam and course grade performance outcomes. We find that the total quality of
students’ participation is positively related to final exam performance but the total quantity of
students’ participation is related to overall course performance. We also find that
synchronous engagement with the course (combined quality and quantity) drives these results
and has twice the exam and grade impact relative to asynchronous course engagement. We
conclude that encouraging high quality and frequent participation in both synchronous and
asynchronous forums will help maximise student performance.

Keywords: Online-Learning, Synchronous, Asynchronous, Participation, Performance

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INTRODUCTION

Technological advances are rapidly changing educational environments, bringing new

opportunities and significant challenges for students, educators and educational institutions
(Bennett and Maton 2010; Collins and Halverson 2010; Marshall 2010). While online
learning has been called “the dynamic education vehicle of our time” (Barnard 2005) and is
becoming more and more common across the disciplines, there is still much to be learned
about the pedagogy of teaching courses online (Arbaugh 2005a, 2005b; Niles and O'Neill
2007; Oncu and Cakir 2011). However, the evidence is mixed on student learning in online
courses. For example, Hron et al. (2000) find no differences in knowledge acquisition for
students in structured versus unstructured online classes, while Tan et al. (2000) find
participation and engagement in structured online forums is positively related to the quality
of students’ outcomes. We extend the online learning literature by exploring the performance
impact of student engagement in synchronous (chat room) and asynchronous (discussion
board) online forums.

We currently know little about the learning impact of engagement in these two online forums.
Kubey et al. (2001) find greater use of synchronous communications is associated with
impaired academic performance more so than asynchronous applications. McBrien et al.
(2009) find students rated synchronous virtual classrooms highly due to the convenience,
autonomy and quality of discussions they evoked. In contrast, Perera and Richardson (2010)
find the quantity of material accessed via asynchronous forums and the quantity of
asynchronous discussion interaction, rather than time spent online per se, positively impacts
final exam performance. Others find students perceive synchronous forums as either
providing them with core material to fall back on or as a tutor communication (Love and Fry
2006), and as a result students are unwilling to participate in synchronous online activities
(Wells et al. 2008).
We contribute to this emerging literature and examine the relationship between Executive
MBA students’ participation and performance in an online and off-campus accounting
course. We measure student participation in terms of their engagement with two types of
online forums: (1) a synchronous forum (i.e., a chat room, scheduled during fixed time
periods, within which the instructor and students simultaneously engage in text-based chat to
discuss course-related content) and (2) an asynchronous forum (i.e., discussion boards
accessible by the students and instructor 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, where students and

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the instructor intermittently pose questions and comments to each other in “threads” of
related communications). Both the quality and quantity of students’ participation in these
forums are used as predictors of final examination and overall course performance. Student
participation in chat rooms and discussion boards is strongly recommended in the course
materials and by the instructors, but participation is voluntary.

Results suggest that the total quality of students’ participation (in synchronous and
asynchronous forums combined) is positively related to final exam performance. In contrast,
the total quantity of students’ participation is positively related to overall course performance.
We also find that synchronous engagement with the course (combined quality and quantity)
drives these results and has twice the impact on final exam and overall course performance
relative to asynchronous course enragement. These results are robust to alternative
specifications of participation. Finally, we find engagement in the two forums positively
impacts performance over and above total online engagement.

The paper proceeds as follows. The next two sections first review the online learning
literature and then distil three research hypotheses. We then describe the paper’s research
methodology and present the results. Finally, we discuss the result and conclude with some
recommendations for online education programs.

ONLINE LEARNING LITERATURE REVIEW

Online learning and virtual class forums are a reality in today’s organisational (Clark and
Gibb 2006; Shea-Schultz and Fogerty 2002) and educational environments (Alavi and
Leidner 2001; Collins and Halverson 2010). While the practice of using internet-based
classroom environments continues to rise, research in this area is lacking (Brower 2003;
Duncan et al. 2011; Oncu and Cakir 2011). Arbaugh’s (2005a) review of research on online
learning shows that most of the conceptual work in this domain started in 1999, with
empirical research first published relatively recently in 2000. i

While this field is developing, as educators we recognise the need for our students to learn
skills related to effective and efficient communication in internet-based forums. This is
particularly true as organisations of all shapes and sizes become increasingly dependent upon
inter- and intra-organisational online communications (e.g., worker-worker, worker-client,
boss-subordinate, buyer-seller) (Clark and Gibb 2006). With such a universal demand for

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online skill acquisition and development, educators at all levels are working to create online
environments that are conducive to learning (Drennan et al. 2005; Rogers 2000). As Segrave
and Holt (2003) note, our knowledge base as educators in this domain is not only inadequate,
but the small amount of research we do have is drawn from isolated tests or anecdotal
experience (Alavi and Leidner 2001; Arbaugh 2005a). What most researchers do appear to
agree upon is that online students require embedded opportunities for reflection and
engagement as well as, ideally, supportive guidance from faculty to maximise learning (May
and Short 2003).

This is consistent with the notion that effective online courses are those in which “student-
centered learning communities” are created (Clark 2001; Poole 2000). These communities
are characterised by fluid and co-created learning processes where the faculty member is no
longer an information provider, but a facilitator and member in the process of knowledge
creation. To create this in a traditional classroom environment is difficult for many educators
and more difficult in the online environment (McBrien et al. 2009).

One obvious challenge of online education is maintaining quality as educators question

whether student learning is compromised in an online environment. To address this concern,
Chernish et al. (2005) conducted a study to compare academic achievement across three
teaching contexts: traditional classroom, instructional television and online (over the
internet). They found no significant differences in student learning across the three contexts.
One area in which they did find a difference was students’ level of comfort in the class, with
25% of the students in the online class rating themselves as “uncomfortable” with the online
environment. Additionally, only 33% of the online students reported satisfaction with
general classmate interaction, versus 80% satisfaction for students in the traditional
classroom setting. Finally, only 49% of the online students felt that they could communicate
easily with others (as compared to 66% in the traditional classroom setting). Chernish et al.
(2005) highlights the challenge for online educators. While student learning across the
different contexts was not adversely affected in their study, students were significantly less
comfortable with the online learning environment than they were in the traditional face-to-
face format.

It may be that students’ low levels of comfort stem from a lack of student-teacher interaction.
Dunbar (2004) argues that one of the greatest challenges of online course delivery is the

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reduced interaction between student and teacher. She cites numerous reports of student
evaluations where restricted availability on the part of the instructor was the greatest
weakness of the class. In fact, in a setting similar to our study, Gagne et al. (2001) ran a
comparative study of online versus face-to-face graduate accounting classes. Although they
found no difference in student performance, they did find that the students in the online
course were less satisfied with instructor availability. Research in this area is still
inconclusive. Some studies find high levels of student satisfaction with the interactive
components of online courses (Lindner et al. 2002) and others find high levels of
dissatisfaction with interactive components, leading students to complain about feelings of
isolation (Kelsey et al. 2002). Palmer and Holt (2009) found clear communication lines in an
online environment contributes significantly to student satisfaction.

While the research on interaction and satisfaction is inconclusive, educators would be remiss
if they dismissed the importance of student interaction in online courses. Research has
shown that one way to increase interaction is to provide flexible support through online
tutoring (Fischer et al. 2003). When compared to face-to-face tutorial or mentoring
situations, online tutoring may require “more frequent and more explicit purpose-setting,
progress-reporting, and problem solving communications” (O’Neill and Harris 2004).
Faculty may need to establish timeframes for responses by stating when responses will be
generated (e.g., “when a question is posted, I will respond to it within 24 hours Monday-
Friday, weekend postings will have a response on Monday before 12:00pm”). Moreover,
online tutors should establish relationships with individual students, creating one-on-one
virtual dialogues that can later be merged into larger discussion threads for groups.

The type of online environment used, synchronous or asynchronous, is another challenge in

teaching an online course. Synchronous forums (i.e., students and faculty are logged on
simultaneously) have the benefit of real-time communications between students and faculty
member(s). Students can ask questions and receive an immediate response; faculty members
can pose questions and watch for immediate or delayed responses. Delayed responses may
highlight the need to further engage students with the topic, describe alternative applications
or give other examples. Synchronous forums allow for a much higher level of interactivity
than time-delayed or asynchronous forums. Wells et al. (2008) find, however, that students
are reluctant to engage in synchronous communication even though they embrace online
course materials. Love and Fry (2006) suggest that this is because students consider online

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materials as a safety net rather than a supplementary learning tool. Finally, higher online
presence, such as synchronous communication, can in fact be detrimental to academic
performance due to the quantum of late night online activity (Kubey et al. 2001).

Asynchronous forums (e.g., discussion boards), while challenging in terms of creating a high
level of interactivity and sense of community, are the most common online mechanisms used
today (Brower 2003; Hull and Saxon 2009; Yang 2008). Asynchronous delivery may be
particularly useful when students are working together across different time zones (Arbaugh
2000; Berger 1999) ii because students can “attend” class discussions or group work at their
convenience. Additionally, as discussed by Brower (2003), there is no limit to the “air time”
for students, meaning they are able to contribute to class at any time, any day and for an
unlimited duration. Students report that the provision of online discussion boards is a
significant motivator to learn (De Lange et al. 2003). More importantly the evidence suggests
that the quantity of discussion messages is positively related to examination performance but
quantity of time online is not (Perera and Richardson 2010).

We add to this literature by exploring the relationship between Executive MBA students’
online participation and performance in a required accounting course. We examine student
participation in two online forums – a chat room (a synchronous online setting) and a series
of discussion boards (an asynchronous online setting) – in terms of both quality and quantity
of student participation. Performance is measured as the students’ final examination scores,
as well as their overall course grades. Our goal is to better understand the relationships
between participation and performance in online settings so that we can make informed
decisions about how to promote student learning in online educational environments.

HYPOTHESIS DEVELOPMENT
Research supports the view that a positive correlation exists between the amount of online
interaction and students’ learning (Graham and Scarborough 2001; Perera and Richardson
2010). This may be particularly true when online courses include different types of online
student interactions. For example, three types of interactions are described in the literature:
learner-to-learner (e.g., student team members working together over email), learner-to-
content (e.g., students accessing PowerPoint slides over the internet), and learner-to-
instructor (e.g., chat room and discussion boards) (Love and Fry 2006; Moore and Kearsley
1996; Sugahara and Boland 2006). While all three types of interaction may increase student

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participation and learning, learner-to-instructor interactions have been shown to have the
greatest effects. We argue that this relationship should be maintained for online interactions
across both synchronous and asynchronous online environments. Some students will prefer
the predictability and interaction of the synchronous, regularly scheduled chat sessions with
weekly questions posed and issues raised. In this environment, students and faculty interact,
discussing prescribed topics and assigned questions in an internet-based dialogue. Other
students may need more time to process ideas and form questions; these students may be
more comfortable participating in the asynchronous forum than in the synchronous forum.
The freedom and autonomy to tailor contributions to their individual needs may raise their
interest, enthusiasm and comfort with the class, which may positively impact learning and
performance. We therefore hypothesise the following for the combined participation in
synchronous and asynchronous forums:

Hypothesis 1: Student total online participation (quality and quantity) will positively
influence (a) final examination and (b) overall course performance scores.

Hypothesis 1 focuses on the relationships between performance and students’ total quality
and total quantity of participation. One issue that the hypothesis does not address is the
question of whether or not students’ participation in each of the isolated online forums (the
synchronous chat room and the separate asynchronous discussion boards) has a differential
impact on student final examination and overall course performance. This issue is
particularly important given the paucity of research comparing differences in student learning
outcomes across types of online forums. As Conaway et al. (2005) highlight, there is very
little information about how quality versus quantity of student online interaction will
differentially predict performance. We examine this question in terms of the synchronous
and asynchronous forms of participation utilised in this course and hypothesise the following:

Hypothesis 2: Students’ participation (quality and quantity) in each online forum in isolation
(synchronous and asynchronous) will positively influence (a) final examination and (b)
overall course performance scores.

The quantity of participation in an online environment is related to improved examination

performance (Davidson 2002; Davies and Graff 2005). This research shows a positive
association between the quantity of online files accessed, the number of online discussion
messages posted by students, and their examination performance (Perera and Richardson

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2010). While quantity of participation may be an important predictor of performance, our
focus is on assessing the impact of the quality of students’ participation. The concern for
quality is not new to education. Over the years quality frameworks were created to
differentiate the quality of a student’s learning.

As early as the 1930s, Dewey (1938) raised the issue of different levels of student learning,
arguing that experiential learning provided students with one of the richest opportunities for
cognitive development and skill acquisition. Subsequently, Bloom’s (1956) six-level
taxonomy classified the quality of student learning as knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. This taxonomy is not prescriptive in that
behaviours can fall at any point on the continuum, with upward and downward movement
and multiple behaviours common. Evaluation represents behaviours indicating the highest
level of cognitive development in the taxonomy. Extending Bloom’s taxonomy to student
participation leads to the following: students who engage in analysis, synthesis and evaluative
discussions (i.e., functioning at the higher quality of learning levels) are more likely to
perform better than students who are only memorising, comprehending or simply applying
concepts (Athanassiou et al. 2003).

Biggs (1976) developed an alternative framework for conceptualising students’ behaviours in

classroom settings. Biggs’ behaviour questionnaire and his later study process questionnaires
(Biggs 1987; Biggs et al. 2001) conceptualize student learning behaviours as “deep” versus
“surface” approaches to learning. With a deep learning approach, students are striving to
maximise meaning, drawing upon their intrinsic interest in the topic area. With a surface
learning approach, students simply rote learn material to avoid the possibility of failure.
While arguably each of these approaches captures important aspects of student learning, the
nature of our research data and observed behaviours determined our choice of measure. In
this study we employ Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy to classify the quality of observed student
interactions with the course via the synchronous and asynchronous forums. Therefore, in
terms of better understanding the relationship between total participation quality and
performance in online environments, we hypothesise the following:

Hypothesis 3: The quality of students’ synchronous and asynchronous participation in the

online forums will positively influence (a) final examination and (b) overall course
performance scores.

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METHODOLOGY

Student performance and their participation through online forum interaction in an online
Executive MBA accounting course provide the data for the research. The course was taught
virtually using narrow-cast video lectures, chat rooms, and discussion boards. In addition to
the weekly readings and exercises, the teaching tools used in the class are as follows:

1. A one-hour lecture per week, via narrow cast satellite TV.

2. A one-hour follow-up to the lecture per week, focused on problem demonstration and
discussion, also via narrow cast satellite TV.
3. A two-hour weekly chat session, run by the course instructor. The chat sessions
represent the synchronous interactions examined in this study.
4. A discussion board for each topic in the course was open to students at any point
during the course. Instructors access this board intermittently to respond to any
student-posted questions and to stimulate further discussions via comments and
questions. The discussion board posts represent the asynchronous interactions
examined in this study.

All students enrolled in the course were familiar with both the chat room (synchronous) and
discussion board (asynchronous) forums. To assist with visibility of the discussion boards,
instructors referred to the discussion boards in the chat sessions.

Participants
A total of 272 Executive MBA students participated in this study: the first class (85 students),
second class (67 students) and third class (120 students). All students were enrolled in the
online MBA program and were participating in a required accounting course. The students
contributed to the synchronous and asynchronous forums at their discretion. The course
undertaken was the same format in terms of assessment items; however, the course improved
over time with amendments to the discussion board structure that improved interaction and
accessibility. The chat room sessions remained unchanged in format and delivery mode. The
overall website was also restructured and improved over the time period of the three classes.

Dependent Variable
Two separate measures of student performance are used as dependent variables: (a) the
student’s grade in the final examination, FinalExam; and (b) the student’s overall
performance in the course, TotalScore. The final examination, FinalExam, comprised 40 per

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cent of the total course grade and is specifically designed to focus on aspects of deeper
application-oriented learning (Biggs 1987). The examination is based on a case study by
McNamara and Duncan (1996), which is presented as an agenda for the Board Finance Sub-
Committee to finalize the annual accounts for a dummy corporation. The final examination is
designed to elicit student responses that encompass the six components of Bloom’s (1956)
taxonomy of educational objectives: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis,
synthesis and evaluation. The final exam accomplishes this goal, in terms of case content, via
eight accounting problem areas set as agenda items that the student must address: accounts
receivable, inventory, marketable securities, revenue recognition (internet sales, sales policy,
a special sale), investment in associate company, revaluation of assets, developmental
expenses for a new product and dividend and taxation.

The overall course performance, TotalScore, incorporates the final examination (40%) plus
grades for other assessment items, such as individual and group project work (40%) and
review quizzes (20%). The TotalScore performance measure, therefore, incorporates
individual and group assessment, as well as a series of quizzes that concentrate primarily on
the knowledge aspects of accounting education.

Independent Variables
Synchronous Forum: Chat Room
The synchronous forum comprised 10 chat sessions through the Blackboard course website,
which provides an electronic whiteboard. Chat sessions were 2 hours in duration. Students
could attend either of two weekly chat sessions. Blackboard provides transcripts of the chat
sessions, which include the dialogue and identity of each participant. We measured both the
quantity and quality of participation. The quantity of student participation in the chat room,
SyncQuant, is the aggregate number of times a student made a comment, posed a question or
raised an issue in any of the chat rooms. The quality of the students’ participation, SyncQual,
involves rating their individual comments or questions between one and six, derived from
Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of student learning behaviours.

Asynchronous Forum: Discussion Board

A discussion board was set up for each administrative issue and for each lecture and tutorial,
plus one discussion board for each assessment item. For the purposes of this study,
administrative items were excluded from the analysis. The quality and quantity rating

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systems described above for chat sessions (synchronous) were also applied to the discussion
board (asynchronous) to measure participation quality, AsyncQual, and quantity,
AsyncQuant.

To ensure consistency in applying the Bloom rating system, two accounting instructors
worked together to develop the ranking. With an agreed protocol for ranking established, one
of the accounting instructors coded the statements. A second independent coder also coded
the statements according to the protocol. Coder reliability was measured using a Kappa
coefficient, which is the proportion of agreement following adjustment for chance agreement.
There was a high level of agreement with a Kappa of 0.81, which is significant at the 5%
level (F-test).

The following examples of students’ comments and their affiliated quality ratings illustrate
the application of the ranking protocol. At the lowest levels of the taxonomy (knowledge and
comprehension, coded as a 1 and 2 respectively), a student wrote the following question in a
chat room: “Am I correct in saying that a “sale” requires a market transaction?” (coded as
1). In terms of the middle levels of the taxonomy (application and analysis, coded as a 3 and
4 respectively), a student posed the following question on a discussion board: “If I own less
than 50% of a company but I have convertible shares that enable me to convert my holding to
greater than 50%, could I be said to have control of the company?” (coded as 3). Finally, in
terms of the highest levels of the taxonomy (synthesis and evaluation, coded as 5 and 6
respectively), a student stated with respect to a case analysis in a chat session: “Here is what
my interpretation is… While I had the capacity to control the company, I never exercised that
capacity because my membership on the Board was 50/50 with a second investor and there
was an independent Chairman of the Board, so in fact, in terms of controlling the financial
decisions, I didn’t actually exercise control because I didn’t have it” (coded as 6).

RESULTS
Descriptive statistics are reported in Table 1. Two additional variables are computed from
the base measures – TotalQual is the combination of the chat room (synchronous) and
discussion board (asynchronous) quality scores and represents a total quality of participation
score for each student. Similarly, TotalQuant is the total quantity of participation across both
the chat rooms and the discussion boards. The minimum scores of zero and low average
scores indicate there are a number of students in each cohort who did not engage in either the

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chat room or the discussion boards. Conversely, there are also a number of students who were
highly active and exhibited high quality interaction. Due to the wide dispersion of quantity
and quality levels across students (i.e. high variance), the average for any variable is not
necessarily an indication of the explanatory power of the independent variables. Similarly,
the exam scores and total score are highly variable and cover almost the full range of
potential scores from zero to 100 percent. The key question to address is whether the variance
in performance measures are correlated with variance in the participation measures.

INSERT TABLE 1 HERE

Table 2 reports the correlation matrix for the dependant and independent variables. As
expected, students’ overall grades for the course (TotalScore) and their final examination
grades (FinalExam) are highly correlated (0.67); the difference is the averaging impact of
group assessment grade on the TotalScore variable. Table 2 also shows that the quality and
quantity measures are correlated with each other. Specifically, TotalQual and TotalQuant are
correlated 0.77, SyncQual and SyncQuant are moderately correlated at 0.51, and the
discussion board ratings for quality and quantity of participation (AsyncQual and
AsyncQuant) are highly correlated at 0.85. The latter is potentially problematic for any testing
of the relative impact on performance of quality versus quantity of participation, especially
for AsyncQual and AsyncQuant. The high bivariate correlations suggests a multicollinearity
issue and thus it is prudent to consider if this is evidence of a measurement and/or construct
validity problem within the study. While multicollinearity is arguably a data issue, if the data
for the independent variables are correlated sufficiently, then the estimated coefficients are
unreliable and the standard errors are inflated (Belsley et al. 1980; Gujarati and Porter 2009).
The model is still a good predictor, but the interpretation of the individual coefficients and
weights within the model could be questionable. It is the latter that is important to this study
and hence, we conducted additional analyses to better understand and capture the dimensions
in the data.

INSERT TABLE 2 HERE

Combining independent variables, via a principal components analysis, is suggested as a way

to address potential multicollinearity issues (Belsley et al. 1980; Gujarati and Porter 2009).
Hence, we conducted an exploratory principal components analysis (PCA) to investigate the

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underlying dimensionality of the independent variable data for the four measures: SyncQual,
SyncQuant, AsyncQual and AsyncQuant. The PCA indicated two factors with eigen values
greater than one were appropriate given the scree test plot iii. There are two common tests that
indicate a reliable factor result. The KMO test determines whether there is sufficient
correlation between variables to provide usable factors. This measure was above the
minimum cut-off of 0.5 for our sample. The second test, Bartlett’s test of sphericity,
determines whether the residuals are randomly distributed. For the factor solution in Table 3
Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant at p< 0.01 level. We used Varimax rotation with
Kaiser Normalisation to estimate the two factors, reported in Table 3, because this produces
independent factors and thus addresses the multicollinearity issue for subsequent analysis.

INSERT TABLE 3 HERE

The factors represent the degree to which students engaged with the online forums in terms of
time and energy to study and master the course material (McBrien et al. 2009; Robinson and
Hullinger 2008). We label the two factors as synchronous engagement (SyncEng) (largely
influenced by the SyncQual and SyncQuant dimensions) and asynchronous engagement
(AsyncEng) (a weighted combination of the four variables, but largely represents the common
variance of AsyncQual and AsyncQuant). The rotated factor scores are saved and the two
factors SyncEng and AsyncEng are used in regressions to explore the relative impact of
synchronous and asynchronous engagement on student performance (FinalExam and
TotalScore) for the subject.

Hypothesis 1:
The first hypothesis proposed that a student’s total online participation would positively
influence performance. Equations 1(a) and 1(b) below operationalise Hypothesis 1. The
equations use the final examination score and the total course scores respectively as
dependant variables. A pooled OLS regression was used to estimate the models.

FinalExam = α1 + α2TotalQual+ α3TotalQuant + ε (1a)

TotalScore = α1 + α2TotalQual + α3TotalQuant + ε (1b)

In the null form, Hypothesis 1 is operationalised as: α2 = α3 = 0 for each equation. Table 4
presents the results of the regressions to test of this hypothesis. For the student’s final

14
examination score, the estimation results for equation 1(a) indicate a significant positive
relationship between the quality of students’ participation (TotalQual) and the final
examination scores (FinalExam), and a significant negative relationship between the quantity
of students’ participation (TotalQuant) and their final examination scores (FinalExam).
These results suggest that the higher the quality of students’ participation in synchronous and
asynchronous forums the higher the final exam score. On the other hand, the higher the
quantity of students’ participation, the lower the final exam score will be. This is unexpected
and we will discuss this later.

Equation 1(b) tests the effects of quality and quantity of participation on a student’s overall
grade for the entire course (TotalScore), as opposed to just their final examination score. For
TotalScore, the quantity (or number of times a student participated) is the only significant
variable (p=0.004), but this time we find a positive effect. This suggests that the more a
student participates in any course-based online setting, the higher the overall course grade.

INSERT TABLE 4 HERE

Hypothesis 2:
Hypothesis 2 proposed that quality and quantity of student participation in each online forum
in isolation – synchronous and asynchronous – would impact positively on (a) the final
examination and (b) overall course performance. However, as discussed earlier, the quality
and quantity measures are highly correlated, hence we can only test hypothesis 2 in terms of
total engagement via both the synchronous and asynchronous environments. Each equation
is presented as two sub-equations (a) where the final examination score is the dependent
variable and (b) where the overall grade for the course is the dependent variable.

FinalExam = α1 + α2SyncEng +α3AsyncEng + ε (2a)

TotalScore = α1 + α2SyncEng +α3AsyncEng + ε (2b)

In the null form, Hypotheses 2a and 2b are operationalised as: α2 = α3 = 0. Table 4 presents
the relationships between engagement in the two forums and performance in the final
examination and overall course. Equation 2a tests the hypothesis that the aggregate level of
both synchronous and asynchronous forms of engagement, SyncEng and AsyncEng, explain
the final exam performance. The results show synchronous engagement via the chat room is

15
significantly related to the final exam performance, FinalExam, at the 5% level. However,
asynchronous engagement has a more marginal positive impact (significant at the 10% level)
on exam performance. The results reported in Table 4 for equation 2b suggest that both
synchronous and asynchronous engagement impact positively on the total performance score,
TotalScore, for the subject. The chat room synchronous engagement has three times the
impact on total course score relative to asynchronous engagement. This result suggests that
chat room interaction is more important than discussion board engagement for performance
in online subjects. The results underpin the general conclusion that the quality and quantity of
both forms of engagement impact final exam and total course performance.

Hypothesis 3:
Hypothesis 3 posits a positive relationship between the quality of students’ participation in
online forums, SyncQual and AsyncQual, and their performance. This hypothesis is
examined in two forms, one with the students’ final examination scores, FinalExam, as the
dependent variable and the other with the students’ overall course grade, TotalScore, as the
dependent variable. The equation for Hypothesis 3 is as follows:

FinalExam = α1 + α2SyncQual +α3AsyncQual + ε (3a)

TotalScore = α1 + α2SyncQual +α3AsyncQual + ε (3b)

In the null form, Hypothesis 3 is operationalised as: α2 = α3 = 0. Table 4 presents the results
for equations 3a and 3b. The quality of students’ participation in chat rooms (SyncQual) was
positively related to both their final exam and overall course scores. The quality of students’
participation in discussion boards (AsyncQual) was also positively related to their final
examination and overall course performance scores. However, only the relationship with
overall course performance, TotalScore, was significant at the p<0.05 level (p=0.029).

Robustness Test
We conducted additional analyses of the total quantity of online interaction to test the
robustness of the results. For one cohort of students (n = 120) we were able to capture the
total number of interactions with the online site. For each student this measure, TotalAccess,
includes the quantity of interaction with the two forums (synchronous and asynchronous) plus
all other interaction with the online course materials and information. Our proposition is that
total access to the online course would positively impact performance (Perera and Richardson

16
2010). However, given the earlier results we would also expect that if synchronous and
asynchronous online activities do impact performance, then they should provide additional
explanatory power above the TotalAccess measure. This is because the TotalAccess measure,
by definition, will include higher learning activities, as well as routine and administrative
type tasks, such as checking the course outline, downloading lecture notes, reading
assessment instructions and uploading assignments.

Due to the overlap in the measures identified earlier, we first conducted a PCA of the
TotalAccess measure along with the four quality and quantity measures (for synchronous and
asynchronous engagement) for the reduced dataset of 120 students. The principal components
matrix is reported in Table 5. The variables loaded on three distinct factors which accounted
for 96.7% of the total variance. The KMO measure of sampling adequacy was greater than
0.5 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant at p< 0.01 level, indicating that the model
is appropriate for PCA. To differentiate the robustness analysis from the main analysis, we
label the engagement factors SyncEng2, AsynEng2, and CourseEng. The first two factors are
similar to the prior analysis and capture synchronous and asynchronous engagement (i.e.
combined quality and quantity). The third factor captures the unique aspects of total course
engagement that are distinct from the engagement via the synchronous and asynchronous
forums.

INSERT TABLE 5 HERE

To test the robustness of the results we estimated two new equations where the three
engagement factors are regressed on the two performance measures, final examination scores
and the students’ overall course grade, as per equations 4a and 4b below.

FinalExam = α1 + α2SyncEng2 +α3AsyncEng2 +α4CourseEng + ε (4a)

TotalScore = α1 + α2SyncEng2 +α3AsyncEng2 + α4CourseEng + ε (4b)

The OLS estimation of equations 4a and 4b are reported in Table 6. The results show that
students’ total engagement in the online course, CourseEng, positively impacts both the final
exam and total course grade. We also find that synchronous engagement, SyncEng2, has
additional explanatory power for both the final exam and total course performance,

17
significant at 5% level or better. Asynchronous engagement has a marginal positive
performance impact, significant at the 10% level. The pattern of results for engagement in the
two forums is consistent with the earlier analysis reported in Table 4. We conclude that while
all forms of engagement in the online course positively impact performance, synchronous
engagement appears to be more important especially with respect to final exam performance
when higher levels of learning are tested.

INSERT TABLE 6 HERE

DISCUSSION
The results support the use of online forums as learning tools in distance education programs.
We find the quality of students’ participation in online forums is positively related to final
exam performance. This is consistent for the aggregated “pooled” test of synchronous (chat
room) and asynchronous (discussion board) forums (Hypothesis 1a), as well as each type of
forum engagement on its own (Hypothesis 2a). These results suggest students’ exam
performance can be enhanced through engagement in online forums. Thus, for online
educational programs, students should be encouraged to attend chat sessions or other
synchronous learner-to-instructor forums. Further, students should monitor what others write
in online forums and be motivated to ask meaningful questions and provide insightful
comments. Our recommendation makes intuitive sense because the instructor leads the chat
rooms and motivates the students by posing a series of questions and comments that could be
indicative of what will be asked of students on the final examination. In most classroom
environments (virtual included), the instructor not only leads the discussions, but also creates
the examinations. This suggested focus on the chat room is strengthened by the outcome of
Hypothesis 3a. In that analysis, the quality of chat room participation is significantly related
to performance, and yet the quality of discussion board participation is not. Many of the
threads in discussion boards are composed of learner-to-learner communications. While each
topic had a discussion board, it was difficult for students to develop in-depth interaction
because a discussion may move to another issue before the student learning processes are
complete. Additionally, the discussion board is not restricted to issues raised by the
instructor, but rather is open to issues raised by any student, regardless of how closely the
topic may be related to the course content.

18
Students’ overall course grades (comprising 40% final examination, 25% group project, a
15% individual paper and review quizzes worth 20%) was positively related to the students’
total quantity of participation (Hypothesis 1b). This finding was supported by Hypothesis 2b,
which shows engagement in synchronous and asynchronous forums is positively related to
overall course grade. This finding suggests that students are able to effectively ask questions
and understand responses about not only course-based content, but also application of course
materials to all of the assigned components of the course. Although chat room discussions
are primarily focused on content-related topics, the discussion board (and to some extent the
early and latter parts of each chat room interaction) has questions about the individual paper,
group projects, and other student-generated topics and application. Additionally, in terms of
overall course grades, we found that the quality of students’ chat room discussions, and to a
lesser extent the quality of discussion board contributions, were positively related to
performance (Hypothesis 3b).

For asynchronous discussion boards, it comes as no surprise to us that the quality of students’
discussion board participation was not related to final examination performance (Hypothesis
3a). When reviewing the students’ comments and questions, we noted that there were a large
number of comments and questions about issues other than those related to the specific
conversation the instructor initiated. There were the occasional high-level quality questions
raised; however, these tended to be about issues stemming from group project applications or
individual student work situations (i.e., not examination related). It may be that the students
who were the most engaged in high quality discussion forum conversations were heavily
focused on group project-oriented coursework rather than final examination
conceptualization and application.

Interestingly, we did not see the expected positive relationship between total quantity of
forum participation and final examination performance (Hypothesis 1a). In unreported
analysis we regressed total quantity (TotalQuant) against final exam score and found no
significant relationship. If the negative coefficient in column 1a of Table 4 is not a spurious
result then our best explanation would stem from our anecdotal evidence that there is a
percentage of students who ask a large number of basic-level knowledge-based questions
throughout the course of the semester. These forum interactions may not assist with an exam
that focuses on critical thinking rather than declarative knowledge. A possible solution is the
use of a ‘Frequently Asked Question’ page that addresses knowledge-based questions leading

19
to a more effective role for forums. Our robustness analysis does, however, show that higher
total online course engagement positively impacts exam and overall course performance.

In aggregate the results suggest that synchronous engagement has a larger positive impact on
student performance relative to asynchronous engagement. It would be easy to conclude from
this that it is more important to build synchronous forums into online courses. However, we
note that student engagement in discussion boards (asynchronous forum) has a positive
impact on both final examination performance (Hypothesis 2a) and overall course grades
(Hypothesis 2b). A similar pattern was observed with the robustness test for synchronous
versus asynchronous engagement while controlling for total online course access. We
therefore argue that asynchronous forums also have a useful role in student learning. In
addition to this evidence, there are two other reasons why the role of asynchronous forums
should not be discounted. First, it would appear that students are comfortable asking each
other for help with topics across the range of assessment tasks. Some discussion threads start
with basic concepts then progress to more advanced application, synthesis, and evaluation,
while other strands focus solely on basic concepts for the assessment task at hand. Second,
because asynchronous online environments are available for students 24 hours a day, 7 days
per week, they are an asset to student learning across a wide range of assessment tasks.
Random sampling indicates that students across all time zones contribute to the discussion
board at any time during the day or night. This ease of access, providing students with time to
think and respond to points, may drive the positive asynchronous engagement-performance
relationship for the total course grade, where non-exam assessment clarification is often via
learner-to-learner discussion.

These results should be considered in light of a potential endogeneity issue in that weaker
students ask more questions (higher quantity of engagement) but may still perform poorly
due to the low quality interaction. This suggests that a potential driver of participation quality
is the student’s underlying intellectual capacity. Unfortunately, data constraints do not allow
us to introduce such a control. However, the robustness analysis, which combines into an
index the quality and quantity measures for synchronous and asynchronous engagement
while controlling for total online engagement, finds that both forms of engagement positively
impact performance. This suggests that the overall tenor of the results are supported and not
simply an artefact of intelligence or confounding endogeneity issues.

20
CONCLUSION
Student participation in online forums is the important driver of performance in an online
learning environment. This is one of a small handful of studies that support a positive
relationship between the quantity of participation and performance, particularly in terms of
discussion boards. This finding suggests that faculty need not only be concerned with
encouraging students to contribute at higher and higher cognitive levels, but also be
encouraging students to simply “join in” virtual discussions. Engagement itself may be a
simple, yet effective, way of increasing students’ performance. To promote this, faculty
members need to set clear performance expectations for their students. One way to
encourage high quality contributions is to include a rubric of performance expectations.
Conaway et al. (2005) provide a template for this type of rubric; they define an unsatisfactory
contribution as a “limited response that only touches the surface of the answer… does not
build the usefulness of the discussion”, a satisfactory response as one that “completes the
assignment as required by responding with a useful answer or comment in a timely manner”
and an outstanding response as one that “completes assignment by posting insightful ideas
that are fully developed and demonstrate a genuine understanding of the topic…comments
often extend the discussion and offer unique opportunities to apply the material” (Conaway et
al. 2005). They suggest presenting this rubric to students in the syllabus to set the tone for
expectations of high level questioning, reflecting and communicating in online courses.
Finally, the results suggest a three-tier structure for online learning environments: (1) a
‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page that deals with basic declarative knowledge issues; (2)
asynchronous discussion boards that promote application and analysis and allow learner-to-
learner discussion and support; and (3) synchronous learner-to-instructor forums to focus on
higher level learning.

21
Acknowledgments: This paper has benefited from comments by the editor, an Associate
Editor, two anonymous referees and conference participants. Any errors or omissions remain
the responsibility of the authors

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 TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics
Std.
Variable Definition Minimum Maximum Mean Deviation
FinalExam Score for the final examination. 0 98.5 45.7 25.88
TotalScore Total score for the whole course. 1 98 65.3 19.56
TotalQual Combined score of the quality ratings assigned
to each individual student’s statements (i.e.,
0 105.03 4.93 9.88
questions or comments) from both the chat
room sessions and discussion boards.
TotalQuant Total number of times the student participated
in a either the chat room sessions or discussion 0 69.00 3.93 7.07
boards.
SyncQual Sum of the quality ratings for each student’s
participation (i.e., comments or questions) 0 40 3.71 6.51
across all of the chat room sessions.
SyncQuant Aggregate number of times a student made a
comment, posed a question or raised an issue 0 38 3.11 5.62
in any of the chat rooms.
AsyncQual Sum of the quality ratings for each student’s
participation (i.e., comments or questions) 0 97 1.22 6.54
across all of the discussion board strands.
AsyncQuant Aggregate number of times a student
participated in an online discussion board 0 31 .81 2.85
stream (unlimited maximum number possible).
n=272 for each variable

TABLE 2
Correlation Matrix
FinalExam TotalScore TotalQual TotalQuant SyncQual SyncQuant AsyncQual
FinalExam 1
TotalScore .674*** 1
TotalQual .218*** .291*** 1
TotalQuant .087 .325*** .770*** 1
SyncQual .260*** .290*** .756*** .519*** 1
SyncQuant .024 .306*** .591*** .925*** .512*** 1
AsyncQual .070 .151** .758*** .648*** .146** .384*** 1
AsyncQuant .170** .203** .747*** .660*** .278*** .324*** .851***

*** Correlation significantly different to zero at the 1% level

** Correlation significantly different to zero at the 5% level
n=272 for all cells.

27
 TABLE 3
Two Factor Rotated Component Matrix
SyncEng AsyncEng
SyncQual 0.898 0.040
SyncQuant 0.809 0.275
AsyncQual 0.127 0.960
AsyncQuant 0.190 0.933
n = 272, Variance Explained = 84.59%

TABLE 4
Participation and Performance
Equation 1a 1b 2a 2b 3a 3b

Performance FinalExam TotalScore FinalExam TotalScore FinalExam TotalScore

Measure
Intercept 43.755 61.638 45.696 65.307 41.771 61.849
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
TotalQual 0.969 0.200
(0.000) (0.132)
TotalQuant -0.723 0.683
(0.017) (0.004)
SyncEng 4.252 6.349
(0.004) (0.000)
AsyncEng 2.098 2.607
(0.088) (0.010)
SyncQual 1.014 0.822
(0.000) (0.000)
AsyncQual 0.130 0.333
(0.291) (0.029)

Tolerance 0.407 0.407 1.00 1.00 0.979 0.979

2
Adj R 0.056 0.103 0.026 0.117 0.062 0.090
F 9.096 16.58 4.673 18.888 9.922 14.322
p>F (0.000) (0.000) (0.010) (0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Parameter coefficients with one-tailed p values in parentheses.
Each equation is a pooled regression for n=272 cases.
SyncEng = Rotated Principle Component representing total Synchronous engagement (see Table 3)
AsyncEng = Rotated Principle Component representing total Asynchronous engagement (see Table 3)
See Table 1 for variable definitions

28
TABLE 5
Three Factor Rotated Component Matrix
SyncEng2 AsyncEng2 CourseEng
SyncQual 0.948 0.159 -0.049
SyncQuant 0.941 0.105 0.167
AsyncQual 0.139 0.987 0.038
AsyncQuant 0.132 0.986 0.072
TotalAccess 0.072 0.071 0.993
n = 120, Variance Explained = 96.7%

TABLE 6
Robustness Analysis Total Course Access and Performance
Equation 4a 4b
Performance Measure FinalExam TotalScore
Intercept 59.150 65.475
(0.000) (0.000)
SyncEng2 3.820 2.794
(0.036) (0.026)
AsyncEng2 3.014 2.288
(0.079) (0.051)
CourseEng 7.365 5.151
(0.000) (0.000)
Tolerance 1.00 1.00
2
Adj R 0.108 0.124
F 5.806 6.589
p>F (0.001) (0.000)
Parameter coefficients with one-tailed p values in parentheses. n=120 cases.
SyncEng2 = Rotated Principle Component Synchronous engagement (see Table 5)
AsyncEng2 = Rotated Principle Component Asynchronous engagement (see Table 5)
CourseEng = Rotated Principle Component Course engagement (see Table 5)

29
ENDNOTES

i
This review, discussed in Arbaugh (2005a), included management education publications
such as Journal of Management Education, Management Learning, Journal of Education for
Business and Business Communication Quarterly.
ii
See Brower’s (2003) paper for a thorough description of the rationale behind her use of
asynchronous discussion boards in an online executive MBA OB/HR course.
iii
The scree test is the accepted method for determining the number of factors to extract. The
scree test involves graphing the eigen values and looking for where a ‘scree’ forms which is
the natural bend or break point in the data where the curve flattens out (Costello and Osborne
2005; Rummel 1970).

30