Investigating Triggers in CMC Text Transcripts

Abstract

Computer Mediated Conferencing (CMC) provides the opportunity for interaction in distance education courses. Successful asynchronous text-based conferencing overcomes transactional distance (Moore, 1991), permitting student-student as well as instructor-student communication. Triggers in the Community of Inquiry model are defined more in the latter sense, as messages that are intended by the writer to evoke discussion, whether or not they actually succeed in doing so (Garrison, 2002; Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000; Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2001). The characteristics of postings which succeed in triggering responses, as compared with those which fail to do so, was the focus of this inquiry.