The effects of facilitating feedback on online learners’ cognitive engagement: Evidence from the asynchronous online discussion

Abstract

With a large-scale online K-12 teacher professional development course as the research context, this study examined the effects of facilitating feedback on online learners’ cognitive engagement using quasi-experiment method. A total of 1,540 discussion messages from 110 learners (65 in the experimental group and 45 in the control group) were both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. Results revealed that facilitating feedback significantly impacted learners’ cognitive engagement: (1) the level of cognitive engagement presented in treatment group was significantly higher than that of control group; (2) cognitive engagement levels of original postings increased overtime in the treatment group, while decreased in the control group; (3) the difference in discussion quantities between two groups was not significant. Effective feedback strategies and the importance of facilitating feedback in creating quality online instruction were discussed.