Preliminary study on factors affecting aptitude level for social learning focusing on EFL online discussion

Abstract

The purposes of this preliminary study are (1) to investigate possible factors for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' behavior and attitudes towards computer-supported collaborative learning focusing on online discussion. Comment numbers, satisfaction and perceived group contributions on two online discussions of 58 EFL students were analyzed with multiple regression correlation, in relation with items of six inventories; (a) social skill (Kikuchi, 2007), (b) Self-efficacy for English learning with CSCL based on Matsunuma (2006), (c) English learning strategy (Kubo, 1999), (d) Social presence and cognitive presence with text-chat developed based on Gunawardena & Zittle (1997), (e) Felder-Soloman Index of Learning Style (ILS) (Felder & Silverman, 1988), and (f) researcher-developed questionnaire for a discussion task. The results show that 11 items collectively account for 76.2% of the comment number variance (F(11,46)=13.39, p