Instructors who visibly promoted iHelp and the peer help model seemed to engender greater student engagement¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In iHelp deployments, instructors who strongly promoted the tool, were visibly present in online discussions and encouraged peer help seemed to engender greater student engagement. → Vassileva 2015

Evidence¶

Vassileva 2015¶

Vassileva, J., McCalla, G. I., & Greer, J. E. (2015). From Small Seeds Grow Fruitful Trees: How the PHelpS Peer Help System Stimulated a Diverse and Innovative Research Agenda over 15 Years. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-015-0073-9

q2 · i? · review · r2

Observational finding mined from data generated by experiments run over iHelp's 10-year deployment with thousands of students in large computer science courses. The article reports the instructor effect hedged ("seemed to engender"), attributing part to increased motivation and part to student confidence in iHelp as legitimate academic support; no effect size is printed.

"Instructors who strongly promoted the use of the tool, who were visibly present in the online discussions, and who encouraged the peer help model, seemed to engender greater engagement by their students."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Student engagement in iHelp was not uniform: many lurkers read without contributing while a small minority sought helper status — related
• Learner-instructor and learner-content engagement strategies are negatively associated with digital distraction in online courses — related
• Students perceived online lab exercises as more effective when instructors were present online and used scaffolds and probes directing attention to key procedure aspects — related
• Peer feedback promoted critical reflection, collaboration and engagement, but students doubted its reliability because peers were statistics beginners — related
• PHelpS proved easy to use and mostly recommended good peer helpers in a proof-of-concept test with real CSC workers — related