Student’s Lurking in Telecollaborative Projects and the Development of Intercultural Communicative Competence

Houssine SOUSSIFLHS University Moulay Ismail Meknes (Morocco)

International ConferenceTelecollaboration in University Foreign Language Education

University of León, Spain13 February 2014

Outline• Introduction and Background.• What is Lurking?• Research on lurking.• Research methods:

participants, data collection methods, data analysis.

• Findings.

Introduction and Background

This study investigates the concept of online lurking and its impact on the development of

students’ intercultural communicative competence

(ICC) in the context of telecollaboration.

…

… it is part of an ongoing Ph.D research that investigates the

impact of online language use on students’ ICC.

What is Lurking?Two contrasting perspectives:

Negative connotation Positive connotation

… a pejorative definitionMerriam-Webster's Dictionary

(Merriam-Webster, 2013) provides a pejorative definition for the term,

lurk:To be in a hidden place : to wait in a secret or hidden place especially in

order to do something wrong or harmful

… 1. to lie in wait in a place of

concealment especially for an evil purpose

2. to move furtively or inconspicuously

3. to persist in staying4. to be concealed but capable of

being discovered; and specifically to constitute a latent threat.

… Lurkers as Free-ridersOnline lurkers may be perceived as free-riders or free-loaders, who benefit from an online community’s wisdom without giving anything back (Preece, Nonnecke, & Andrews (2004); Kollock and Smith (1996)).

Positive definitionThe online Jargon Dictionary defines the term, lurker, as:

“One of the ‘silent majority’ in an electronic forum; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is

known to read the group's postings regularly”.

…This term is not pejorative and

indeed is casually used reflexively:

“Oh, I’m just lurking.” When a lurker speaks up for

the first time, this is called ‘de-lurking’.

In this study…A lurker is a participant who reads postings persistently but never posts. This definition specifically excludes users who just visit the community once and then never show up again.

The Extent of Lurking!

Lurkers are reported to make up over 90% of several online

groups (Katz, 1998; Mason, 1999; Nonnecke et al., 2004).

The 90-9-1 principleThere is a formula in online communities

called the 90-9-1 principle.

It refers to the estimate that 1 percent of any online community creates or

contributes content in the community (active contributors), 9 percent respond or show some activity in the community (active lurkers), and the remaining 90

percent just watch without participating (lurkers).

Research on lurking.From reviewing the literature, it is

apparent that lurking and lurkers in online groups have not been studied

extensively.In most of studies of online communities,

the primary source of information was participants who actively conversed in the discussion groups or other online

forums, and who were therefore readily observable.

1.The reasons of lurking

2.Sociodemographics of Lurking

Previous research has mainly studied

1. Motives of lurking…Nonnecke (2000) and Nonnecke and Preece (2001) conducted interviews with virtual communities’ users to understand the reasons for lurking. They proposed the “gratification model” whose underlying assumption is that needs can be met through lurking and that lurking may be the preferred public method of interacting with the group.

The gratification model showing lurkers needs and the most mentioned reasons for lurking. Nonnecke, B., & Preece, J. (2001).

“a sense of belonging to a community”

Another important reason of lurking reported by Beadouin and Velkovska (1999) is the development of a sense of belonging to a community. This means that while watching other people talk and getting familiar with the content and style of the community people feel that they belong to the community.

“A transition strategy”

Whittaker et al. (1998) suggests that the activities of lurkers are a legitimate form of participation, and a background involvement that can be beneficial. They support this position by citing Kraut (1997) and others, who see this as an important transition mechanism for novices to learn about a novel topic or social milieu.

2. Sociodemographics of Lurking

Zlatko J Kovacic (2004) studied the relationship between student participation in an online discussion forum and various sociodemographics in New Zealand. The level of participation was measured using two indicators: the number of postings and lurking level. His major finding is that age and ethnicity are the most dominant factors with significant impact on the number of postings, lurking level and the course marks.

“Gender, age and ethnicity”• It’s difficult to summarize the influence of

gender difference on online participation, but females in general tend to be more active in the forum posting on average 66% more messages than their male counterparts.

• The lurking level is significantly lower among female students.

• Older students are more active in the forum and achieve better marks.

• NZ European learners participated more actively than Asian or Maori learners.

Participants and Research design

For this research project, a group of Moroccan 38 (graduate and undergraduate) EFL learners from the University of Marrakech on the one hand and 26 American graduate students from the TESOL department at emporia State University, Kansas (USA) on the other hand, were involved in an online intercultural exchange in an interactive Word-press blog for a period of eight weeks starting from mid-February and ending mid-April 2013. The participants included both genders, with an age range of 21 to 57 years.

Method of the empirical surveyDespite all the activities to encourage engagement

during the first week of the exchange, only eleven students out of the 64 participants (17.1%), engaged with the discussion, with each of these eleven students only posting twice each.To gain a better understanding of the low level of students’ active engagement at the beginning of the online exchange, in spite of an important passive activity, students were asked to fill an online questionnaire about their passive online activities in the project, the reasons behind these activities and their perceived usefulness related to intercultural learning.

The survey questionnaireThe questionnaire was developed to identify the nature and level of students’ passive participation and then to measure their attitudes in relation to intercultural learning. Mainly fixed alternative responses (multiple choice and Likert scales) were used to measure respondents’ participation and attitudes before and after the active participation in the project (after de-lurking). An open-ended question was included to give respondents an opportunity to contribute additional insights from their experiences.To maximise response, the questionnaire was conducted over the internet (via google docs).

Individual interviews

In order to collect both quantitative and qualitative data, the survey questionnaire was followed by personal F2F interviews with the Moroccan participants and online interviews with the American participants.The online interviews were conducted via skype, and were recorded and transcribed for analyses.

Results and FindingsA total of 51 valid questionnaires were collected, reaching a response rate of 79,6%.And a total of 24 interviews were conducted (16 in F2F and 8 online)

Figure 1: Percentage values based on 51 questionnaire received and 24 interviews conducted

Participants Questionnaires received

Interview conducted

64

51

24

Results and FindingsThe statistical analysis provided some important exploratory and initial findings. The analytical option applied to data derived from the received questionnaires was mainly “Student’s T-test”. The T-test assesses whether the means scores at the beginning are statistically different from that of the end of the experience.Mean scores at the end of the project are definitely higher in all ICC components surveyed ( attitudes, knowledge, and skills).There is a statistically positive correlation between ICC components metric and the number of user postings after de-lurking. This suggests that the more a participant learn about the other culture, the more chances he had to become an active participant.

Results and Findings

knowledge Attitudes Skills

8

21

11

3639

26

Beginning End

Figure 2. Contrastive Mean of ICC components Scores at Beginning of the project and after de-lurking

The open-ended questions and the interviews were analysed manually to provide a qualitative view of the respondents’ attitudes during the project. These questions were mainly asked during the interviews:1. When and why have you started to actively

participate in the online intercultural exchange? 2. What impact did passive participation in the

exchange have in your intercultural learning?3. What abilities do you think are important towards

intercultural success?4. To what extent did you develop these abilities?

Why or why not?

Qualitative inquiry

Qualitative commentsAll participants indicated they progressed and developed in each ICC component during the online intercultural exchange (as passive participants and then as active contributors). Of those who gave qualitative comments, 95.2% of respondents were positive and only 4.8% were negative.Thus, the participants were generally positive about the online intercultural exchange.Of the positive comments, the majority were general views about the exchange being beneficial and helpful in learning the other culture..

The main positive responses were summarised in the following: In relation to lurking:Lurking is often a prelude to more active participation in the community (socialisation into cultural habits and norms of the group by interacting passively).They lurked because reflection is their learning style.Lurking equals thinking critically about what they are reading.They feel they have to add something very polished and well researched and never get round to it (to avoid (inter)cultural clashes).They consider lurking as a “legitimate peripheral participation” which leads eventually to central participation, as they gradually assimilates the culture of the participants.

…In relation to ICCParticipants learned more about others, their language and their culture, about the world, and about themselves. They developed new skills, knowledge, positive attitudes, and intercultural awareness.They feel themselves more open minded, they can now approach people from a different culture more easily, they accept that other cultures are different and function differently.People may be different even inside the same culture.

ConclusionThis study has tended to make some contributions to the knowledge about lurkers in telecollaborative projects.It has sought to find out the relationship between passive participation (lurking) in online collaborative projects and the development of ICC. From the statistical analysis it can be seen that the more a participant learn about the other culture, the more chances he had to de-lurk or to become an active participant.

Thank you Houssine SOUSSI

soussi_h@hotmail.com @esoussi