Work in progress — Assessing cognitive skills in asynchronous online discussion: A case study of Student Centered E-Learning Environment in Indonesia

Asynchronous online discussion is used to facilitate communication between instructor and student, and also among fellow students. Although this communication tool is a frequently-used feature of e-learning systems, there is still a limited number of studies evaluating the cognitive implications of this online discussion. This study aims to evaluate students´ discourse in online discussion by using a cognitive framework analysis. The goal is to identify factors that influence the construction of discussion patterns from a cognitive perspective. The discussion topics are selected based on several criteria, including the content of discussion topics, the person who initiates the discussion, the number of discussion threads, and the type of selected courses. This paper provides preliminary results of the data collection process from four courses in a Computer Science program available in the Student Centered E-Learning Environment: Database I, Foundation of Programming, Linear Algebra, and Discrete Mathematics II.