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The effects of social media on cognitive
development in undergraduate economics
students
Ling Ting and Naiefa Rashied
ERSA working paper 513
April 2015
The e¤ects of social media on cognitive
development in undergraduate economics
students
Ling Ting¤and Naiefa Rashiedy
April 10, 2015
Abstract
The study attempts to evaluate the e¤ectiveness of social media on cog-
nitive development among undergraduate economics students at a South
African university. The study collects data on student postings to dis-
cussion topics posted on Facebook and Twitter. The use of 3 well-known
rubrics for evaluating cognitive development: Garrison, Anderson, and
Archer (2001), revised Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al:2001), and
Greenlaw and Deloach (2003), are used. Results indicate that student
posts fall mainly into lower levels of thinking suggesting that social media
may not be e¤ective in cultivating critical thinking. Moreover, these re-
sults shed light on the voluntary versus mandatory nature of participation,
the time length for student responses, and “big think”style questions in
a developing country context (i.e. poor internet).
Keywords: Social media, teaching and learning, critical thinking
JEL Classi…cation: A20, A22
1 INTRODUCTION
The increased use of social media among students has led to universities in-
tegrating social media into their teaching and learning toolkits (Blankenship
2010; Bell 2011; Chen and Bryer 2012; Moran, Seaman, and Selwyn 2012 and
Langmead 2013). On the one hand, social media is said to have a negative rela-
tionship with academic performance (Jacobsen and Forste 2011). On the other
hand, social media is said to have the potential to increase a student’s learning
and ‘cognitive ability’within a social framework (Bell 2011; Chen and Bryer
2012). Universities such as Harvard, Columbia and John Hopkins are among
¤Lecture r, Depa rtm ent of Econom ics and E conom etrics, University of Johannesbu rg, S outh
Africa Tel: (+27 ) 11 559 47 88, Fax: (+2 7) 11 559 3039, email: lting@uj.ac.za
yCorresp on din g au thor. Lecturer, Departme nt of Econ om ics a nd E conometr ics, Un iversity
of Johan nes burg, S outh Africa , Tel: (+27) 11 559 2974, Fax: (+2 7) 11 559 3039 , em ail:
naiefar@uj.ac.za
1
the top …ve universities in the United States that have intensely integrated so-
cial media, in various forms, into their students’academic life (Langmead 2013).
Following the footsteps of these universities, the University of Johannesburg has
recently embarked on an intense campaign to actively introduce social media,
among other tools, as part of its technology-enabled teaching and learning strat-
egy. Among the most popular social media platforms are Facebook, YouTube
and Twitter (Moran, Seaman, and Tinti-Kane 2011). The explosion of social
media has resulted in higher education institutions utilising this medium to
both market and engage more e¤ectively with students and potential students
(Kim and Bonk 2006; Blankenship 2010; Moran, Seaman and Tinti-Kane 2011;
Selwyn 2012 and Langmead 2013). Given the volume of …rst generation, that
is, ‘technologically-‡uent and digitally literate’students enrolled at universities,
the trend to keep up and capture their attention to promote both a well-balanced
and well-informed student life is impressive. Furthermore, engaging with these
…rst generation students in mediums which are more familiar to them has be-
come increasingly important (Ulbrich et al. 2010; Chen and Bryer 2012 and
Selwyn 2012).
University students, on average, spend 18 hours a week on social network-
ing (Huang and Capps 2013). Both male and female students spend similar
amounts of time checking their Facebook feeds (Aghazamani 2010; Baylor Uni-
versity 2014). Since a student spends much of their time on maintaining and
multi-tasking their social presence, social networks, and university studies (Ja-
cobson and Forste 2011; Selwyn 2012), the use of social media in faculty teaching
and student learning is considered to be potentially more engaging and e¤ective
to reach many students (Bell 2011; Chen and Bryer 2012). The use of social
media among faculty sta¤ also shows similar perceptions - that it is important
to update your social presence in addition to using this medium in teaching, and
in faculty sta¤’s own-learning (Moran, Seaman, and Tinti-Kane 2011). Further-
more, the future demand of online teaching and learning is perceived to grow
exponentially (Kim and Bonk 2006).
Since students are active and engaging in these forums, it is believed that us-
ing these platforms can help to encourage students to think more critically with
regards to their course content (Jones 2011, Hsia, Chen, and Hu 2013). One rea-
son is that students have more time to engage in re‡ective learning. In addition,
social media promotes collaborative learning (peer-to-peer and lecturer-to-many
students), and since social media is a public forum where statements posted are
long lasting, discussions are expected to be more meaningful and thoughtful
(Hsia, Chen, and Hu 2012).
Studies that have tested whether critical thinking is cultivated have used
online discussions, that is, topics relevant to the course outlines are posted up
for a length of time so that students can respond (Garrison, Anderson, and
Archer 2001; Greenlaw and Deloach 2003; Meyer 2003; Meyer 2004; Pena and
Almaguer 2012). To ensure participation, online discussions were mandatory
and graded by the lecturer. These studies primarily used the university’s com-
munication management systems (such as blackboard) and not social media
platforms. Although these studies showed some success in motivating students
2
to think critically, the success was highly dependent on the rubrics used and
the clarity of the rubric’s descriptions in identifying elements or evidence of
critical thinking. This entire process is a rather subjective process. However,
studies such as Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) and Meyer (2004) have shown that
Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2001), revised Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson
et al. 2001) are good examples of rubrics which grade cognitive development
well. Furthermore, as Meyer (2004) argued, these rubrics are user-friendly for
the lecturer and do not require any costly hiring of trained coders.
It is not known from the abovementioned studies whether the use of social
media is more e¤ective in motivating …rst generation1students to reach higher
levels of thinking compared to other communication systems. It is also not
known whether this voluntary approach –since social media is open and public,
and student responses cannot be tracked –, and open learning environment could
be conducive for critical thinking. Additionally, it is not known whether the
format of questions posed for students could also a¤ect critical thinking. Since
online discussion topics are asked in a step-by-step format; so as to provide
guidance for students, for example Greenlaw and Deloach (2003); an additional
aspect to assess is whether changing the question format to a “big think”style
could also impact the use of online discussions in achieving higher levels of
cognitive development (McGoldrick and Garnett 2013).
Furthermore, this study is set in a developing country context as the study
was conducted at a South African university. It is the …rst study, to the best
knowledge of the authors, to explore whether using social media is e¤ective
among university students in a developing country where broadband is a problem
(UN Broadband Commission 2014).
This study intends to explore the use of social media platforms (Facebook
and Twitter) in enhancing higher order critical thinking in economics under-
graduate students. Additionally, the study seeks to understand whether social
media has a presence in South African universities, whether changing the style
of questioning (“big think”) could impact cognitive development, and the e¤ects
of a voluntary scenario versus a mandatory scenario on critical thinking. The
study attempts to answer the question by collecting data on the number of posts
posted by the economics lecturers of a …rst year economics course, and student
responses to the posts over a semester. To assess whether some critical thinking
has taken place, the study proposes to use the rubrics of Garrison, Anderson,
and Archer (2001), Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) and revised Bloom’s taxonomy
(Anderson et al. 2001). The paper does not attempt to directly compare the
communication system of the university with social media but to rather explore
whether social media can be used as an additional tool for enhancing cognitive
learning.
1A note to ma ke here is th at a …rst generation student in a develop ing c ountry context refers
to a stud ent th at is a …rst time un iversity stu dent. He nce to refer to a techn ologically litera te
student, we will replace the wo rds “…rst generation stu dents”with “21st century students”.
3
2 MEASURING COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
IN SOCIAL MEDIA
There are few studies that have evaluated the use of social media for cognitive
development among university students. These studies include those by Bell
(2011), Chen and Bryer (2012) and Jacobsen and Forste (2011). Chen and
Bryer (2012) investigate the use of online social networks among faculty sta¤
at an American university to try to understand whether the perceptions of this
medium could and should be used as a tool for student learning. The …ndings
indicate that these mediums can be used as a tool especially for informal learning
and formal learning where structure and guidance is provided by the lecturer
or during a lecture. Bell (2011) and Jacobsen and Forste (2011) also explored
uses of social media through the evaluation of new social learning theories,
and correlations between social media and grades, respectively. However, these
studies did not test whether social media has the potential to enhance critical
thinking among university students.
On the other hand, studies that have tested cognitive development among
university students and the use of online tools were not clear about the nature
of the online system i.e. whether social media or an alternative online tool was
used. These studies include Garrison, Anderson, and Archer 2001; Greenlaw
and Deloach 2003; Meyer 2003; Meyer 2004; Pena and Almaguer 2012. In these
studies, the online communication platforms utilised was the university’s com-
munication management system, although the methodology for testing cognitive
development through an online communication system made use of rubrics, as
in this study. Discussion topics, which are relevant to the course work and re-
quire logic, argument and substantiation, were posted via these systems. Major
di¤erences between a communication management system and a social media
platform is the openness and publicness of social media resulting in potentially
unregistered student participation (although highly unlikely for critical thinking
topics) and the inability to e¤ectively track students. Inability to track students,
student accounts are personal, can lead to two things: an intertwining of the
personal and professional space of lecturers and students and the voluntary na-
ture of participating in social media discussions since students would choose to
join the page or not.
Considering the latter, our study proposed an incentive system in the form
of a competition to win a book prize (more details in section 3) to incentivise
students to participate. We found our students were open to liking and joining
the page without hesitation. Considering the topic of personal and professional
space, a Gmail account was created to post topics through this account without
using our personal details. Hence, we felt that this was su¢cient enough to
separate personal and professional space.
Since the abovementioned studies tested for cognitive development by using
online or electronic discussions and found evidence of cognitive development oc-
curring in students, this study follows their methodologies. Studies by Greenlaw
and Deloach (2003), Meyer (2003, 2004), and Pena and Almaguer (2012), fol-
4
lowed similar procedures. Discussion topics were posted via the communication
system and students were given time to respond (time lengths given for responses
di¤er substantially). The studies were usually conducted over a semester with
some studies repeating the same experiment in the following semester such that
the length of the study became two years. The student responses were then
evaluated using a series of rubrics.
The crucial part of the experiment was the choice of the rubric/s. In as-
sessing the student response posts, the identi…cation of elements of cognitive
development (or higher order thinking) is rather di¢cult, subjective and can be
confusing. This study takes advantage of all the rubrics used in the abovemen-
tioned studies as the rubrics used overlapped in both use and de…nitions. These
rubrics were detailed and also covered many teaching pedagogies.
The …rst rubric the study employs is that of Garrison, Anderson and Archer
(2001), which derives its rubric from social learning theories. This and the fol-
lowing rubric have been tested by Meyer (2004) and found to assess cognitive
development well. The next rubric is based on Bloom’s taxonomy, but it is a
revised version to include technological learning aspects (Anderson et al. 2001).
Finally, the last rubric used is that of Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) which is
based on Perry’s framework. The use of all 3 rubrics covers the teaching ped-
agogies quite well and it also aids in robustness checks; whether the outcomes
of all three rubrics are similar or di¤erent and if there are di¤erences, can they
be explained or not. Also, the three rubrics are rather detailed with studies ex-
plaining the identi…cation of elements of cognitive development. It is important
to note that some postings that do not fall under any of the levels described in
the three rubrics are not categorised such as posts that describe a status that
is social and not relevant to the discussion.
The rubrics and descriptions for each cognitive level can be observed in
Tables 1, 2 and 3.
3 METHODOLOGY
This study uses a qualitative approach to assess the level of cognitive develop-
ment of undergraduate economics students. The study follows similar method-
ologies to Meyer (2004), and Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) where online discus-
sion topics were posted through the chosen platforms. In this study, Facebook
and Twitter are the social media platforms used. Discussion topics were directly
linked to what was happening in the real-world by hyperlinking newspaper arti-
cles (sources included The Economist and various other …nancial magazines and
websites) and questions were typically phrased in an opinion provoking format
that is “What do you think of . . . .?”with little guidance, following the “big
think”style of questions (McGoldrick and Garnett, 2013). Occasionally, helpful
hints were included in the question such as “Hint: Think about ... theory.”In-
structors provided minimal feedback; feedback was only prompted to focus the
discussion and encourage more engagement. Both Facebook and Twitter were
public pages and open to all economic students. However, advertising of these
5
social media platforms was speci…c to …rst year students. The advertisement of
these pages was included at the bottom of each lecture slide so that students were
aware that such pages existed and could be used to engage with the module con-
tent, post questions and apply economic theory. The two social media platforms
existed in addition to Blackboard, which is also used as a communication tool
between instructors and students at the University of Johannesburg. Each social
media page had its own manager. To incentivise student participation under
this voluntary scenario, a competition with gift certi…cates (book vouchers) was
promoted once every two weeks. The students were reminded that prizes were
given to those who participated in the online discussions through thoughtful
argument (so quality and not quantity was judged). All posts, both discussion
topics and student responses, were analysed and the student responses were
graded by each of the social media managers to compare and conclude overall
…ndings.
4 DATA
Unlike the abovementioned studies by Greenlaw and Deloach (2003), Meyer
(2003, 2004), and Pena and Almaguer (2012), discussion topics were posted
more frequently: weekly, data in the form of student responses, was collected
over the …rst semester period from February 2014 until May 2014 (before exams
and make-up tests which typically take place towards the latter half of May),
and thus the length of the study was much shorter. Below is a summary of the
number of posts, discussion threads, frequency and length of posts in Table 4.
From our …ndings we could observe that our students seemed to use Face-
book more than Twitter; the number of followers and likes, “likes”on Facebook
and the number of “followers”on Twitter, were over 581 likes and 108 followers,
respectively. Since Facebook had the larger number of likes, equivalently fol-
lowers in Twitter terminology, it was decided that the postings from Facebook
would be focused on. Also, although Facebook appeared to have more active
engagement from students, student uptake of discussions were slow as can be
seen from the frequency of student responses. This …nding is similar to other
studies such as Chen and Bryer (2012). The proportion of students engaging
in these pages was also low (37 participants out of a total of 1900 potential
participants, roughly 2% of students).
The number of posts related to microeconomics (and economics in general)
generated for each page was also tracked. There was a minimum of one post to
as many as six posts per week since February 2014. Occasionally, multiple posts
were made by the Facebook manager on one day. The content of the discussion
posts is summarised in Table 5.
The discussions posted were sometimes closely related to the microeconomics
topics students encountered during lectures each week. For instance, some posts
related to demand and supply, in particular, the price of agricultural products
and co¤ee beans. However, topics varied to include more general economic
discussions that were relevant at the time such as the announcement of an
6
increase in in‡ation in South Africa (released by Statistics South Africa) or
the emergence of China as the world’s next super power. From the instructors’
perspective, the topics posted were viewed as related to the real world and to the
students’coursework. Instructors’topics were perceived as challenging enough
to extend the student’s thinking beyond the classroom.
5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results indicate that some level of cognitive development took place dur-
ing the …rst semester study period. There was active engagement from a small
proportion of students (just under 2% out of the total …rst year population).
Student postings ranged from general yes or no responses to detailed arguments
using economic theory from the prescribed textbook, internet sources for em-
pirical evidence and quotations from previous student posts.
Most of the posts were categorised into the lower half of the critical thinking
levels, that is, most student engagements reached application or analytical but
were not yet critical thinking. Students were able to analyse the questions, use
appropriate economic theories (for example, demand and supply) and logically
argue their points in a linear manner. However, in achieving the highest critical
thinking level, only a few posts were able to “test the validity of their solutions
using a real-world example”(Garrison, Anderson and Archer 2001), “organise
information in a di¤erent way or create alternative solutions”(Anderson et al:
2001), or to integrate personal values (“subjective interests”) substantiated by
economic theory and evidence to provide a way forward (Greenlaw and Deloach
2003).
In general, students struggled to make detailed posts. They either merely
asserted their views as fact without substantiation or they provided correct
reasoning resulting in a plausible solution but didn’t reach the highest level of
critical thinking which required some re‡ection of the theory, evidence and their
personal values (level 6 of Greenlaw and Deloach 2003 and Anderson et al. 2001
and level 4 of Garrison, Anderson and Archer 2001).
Scores resulting from the rubrics show that the majority of students reached
level 2 in the 4 level rubric (half way), level 1 and level 3 (also half way) in
Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) and Anderson et al. (2001) respectively (refer to
Table 6).
A possible reason for this di¤erence is that in the 4-level rubric, level 2 de-
scriptors include students presenting di¤erent ideas or opinions. Many of the
student postings o¤ered their own views of approaching and thinking about the
problem question, which was rather unique. They also o¤ered their views in
either a positive or negative light (disagreeing or agreeing with the newspa-
per article), which overlaps with the level 1 descriptors of the Greenlaw and
Deloach (2003) rubric. Although some analysis took place, there was evidence
that students applied themselves whole-heartedly to understanding the question
by using other knowledge they had discovered instead of economic knowledge.
This application level falls into the level 3 descriptors of the revised Bloom’s
7
taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001). Hence, the di¤erences mainly arise from the
descriptors where ideas and opinions that are unique showing evidence of curios-
ity (“inquisitiveness”) is shown in the 4 level rubric while the revised Bloom’s
taxonomy values the application of knowledge (not speci…cally to economics).
On the other hand, Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) is seeking the application of
economic concepts and assumes that without these, critical thinking cannot be
reached.
However, the upper half of the rubric results appears to overlap across the
three taxonomies: analysis/inference-making/evaluation, creation/resolution,
and merging/integration share similar descriptors in recognising higher order
thinking. It must be noted that the Greenlaw and Deloach 2003 rubric is stricter
since higher order thinking cannot be scored without the use of economic theory
and empirical evidence, thus the lower numbers at the higher levels of critical
thinking are observed.
Other studies that have tested the use of online discussions have found that
online discussions provide time for increased engagement, more detailed argu-
ments and personal re‡ection of both theory and application, which serves as
proof that more critical thinking takes place (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer
2001; Greenlaw and Deloach 2003; Meyer 2003; Meyer 2004 and Pena and Al-
maguer 2012). However, our …ndings do not re‡ect those of the abovementioned
studies. The results of our paper show that lower levels of cognitive development
occur when using online discussions compared to the abovementioned studies.
This may be explained mainly by the voluntary and incentive-driven nature of
the study, as online participation was not mandatory –unlike the abovemen-
tioned studies where online discussions formed part of the grade for the course.
Also, the unstructured or “big think”style of questions used, following Mc-
Goldrick and Garnett (2013), which was dissimilar to the abovementioned stud-
ies, did not provide a step-by-step answer guide but allowed for the student the
freedom and creativity to formulate a solution. Lastly, the fact that broadband
penetration is low in South Africa (UN Broadband Commission 2014), which
may have contributed to the low engagement in addition to the a¤ordability of
smart devices among South African university students.
When comparing the total number of student postings in our study to other
studies, this study only used 62 posts and 25 online discussion topics over a
semester. This is relatively small when compared to the closest comparable
studies of Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) and Meyer (2004) who had average of
200 posts for each of the 10 discussion topics over a two semester period and
278 posts and 17 discussion topics over two semesters respectively.
Therefore, if one had to compare the average number of posts to discussion
topics, this study has less than 2.5 posts per topic while Meyer (2004) had 16
posts per topic and Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) had 200 posts per topic. If
we had to categorise the numbers per semester, our study remains at 2.5 posts
per topic while Meyer (2004) had 8 per topic and Greenlaw and Deloach (2003)
had 100 per topic. The large number of posts in Greenlaw and Deloach (2003)
compared to Meyer (2004) could be attributed to the “bonus”grade incen-
tive applied in the Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) study. Furthermore, students
8
could retry or continue commenting to improve their grades through the online
discussions. In comparison, the sample size used in this study is small.
This may imply that a mandatory scenario where posts form part of the
student’s grades, and bonus marks could be earned would be a better incentive
than our competition “win-a-prize”framework. Furthermore, the use of the
social media platform Facebook, although drawing on hundreds of “likes”(581)
over a semester, did not encourage more participation when compared with the
sample sizes of Greenlaw and Deloach (2003) and Meyer (2004) where university
communication systems were used to facilitate online discussions. This may
indicate that social media may not be as e¤ective and engaging for higher order
thinking, although it may be the language of 21st century university students.
Although, our …ndings may suggest this, a more reasonable factor could be
that South Africa’s broadband penetration and usage is very low compared
to the other comparable studies (most of which were conducted in developed
countries). Also, our university students may be at a …nancial disadvantage
(the distinction between developed and developing countries is rather obvious)
and therefore, cannot a¤ord smart devices that connect to the internet and
consequently, may show little interest in online discussion participation. A last
factor that may also have contributed to the low interest (quanti…ed by the
small number of posts) is the way we did not structure our questions.
Following the study of McGoldrick and Garnett (2013), we tried to experi-
ment with giving students more freedom and creativity to come up with solutions
which would not be formulaic or textbook bound. Therefore, we asked them
a question related to a hyperlink of a newspaper article and generally asked
for their views, reminding them to include economic theory into their views.
Perhaps this unstructured approach was too unstructured for the undergradu-
ate student, especially at a …rst year level such that it may have overwhelmed
some interested students. All posts were posted by various students such that
there was never one poster which dominated the conversation –unless there was
only one post in a single thread. Since there was no evidence of bullying on the
Facebook page, students may have felt intimidated as a result of the “big think”
style of questioning than rather from an intimidating peer.
Finally and on a more positive note, student postings indicated topic pref-
erences among students in their response time to other student postings. The
topics that they showed interest in were expectedly those closely related to their
course work such as demand and supply topics, which we found our students
enjoyed and understood rather well, and world economic news, in particular, the
rise of China as an economic super power and the implications of this for the
United States. The latter topic was a rather controversial one hence we suspect
our students liked to argue certain points to provoke responses for fun. Our stu-
dent’s response times to peers was rather quick with an average response time
of 10 minutes, especially when opinions diverged and debates became rigorous.
9
6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The study attempted to evaluate whether the use of social media platforms
such as Facebook could enhance higher order critical thinking among South
African undergraduate economics students. The study was motivated by two
factors: …rstly, the volume of 21st century students attending university and
secondly, the increased use of social media in teaching and learning. Additional
objectives were to understand whether social media is an e¤ective tool to en-
gage with students in a developing country context, the value of unstructured
or “big think”questions, the e¤ectiveness of social media when compared with
university communication systems, and the incentive-driven or voluntary sce-
nario when compared to a mandatory scenario for online discussions via social
media.
The study found that most student posts re‡ected lower levels of thinking in
our online discussions via social media when compared with other comparable
studies, which found higher order thinking. This result could be explained by
the small sample size used in this study (number of posts), which was in‡uenced
by a number of factors. Firstly, our time period was shorter (over one semester)
compared with other studies (over two semesters). Secondly, our voluntary and
competition framework did little to boost participation when compared with
the mandatory scenarios in other studies. Thirdly, our unstructured “big think”
questions could have been intimidating or overwhelming to undergraduate stu-
dents. Fourthly, our broadband penetration and usage in South Africa is low
and our students may not always have internet access. Following from this, our
…fth factor could be that our students cannot a¤ord smart devices.
Overall, our study showed that although there were a few posts that dis-
played evidence of higher order thinking, the majority of posts fell into the
lower order thinking levels. Using social media, in the voluntary sense, did not
increase engagement. This …nding may suggest that even though social media
is the social language of our students, they may not recognise it as a part of
their learning tools and thus as a part of their academic studies. However, our
study is limited by our small sample size, and our short time period. It is hoped
that we can extend our study to include a longer length of time and change
the voluntary, competition driven scenario to a mandatory scenario in order
to more robustly understand the e¤ectiveness of social media in a developing
country context.
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TABLE 1: Rubric assessing cognitive presence (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer 2001)
LEVEL/ELEMENT
DESCRIPTION
RATING/SCALE
Triggering
Evocative: Asking questions, recognising the problem by presenting
background information
1
Exploration
Inquisitive: Search for and offering of information, presenting different
ideas/opinions, brainstorming, leaps to conclusions
2
Integration
Tentative: Construction of possible solution, connecting ideas, creating
possible solutions, building on previous posts, substantiation
3
Resolution
Committed: Critical assessment of solution - testing and applying their
solutions by using real world examples
4
Source: Authors’ adaptation from Garrison, Anderson, and Archer 2000
TABLE 2: Revised Bloom (Anderson et al. 2001)
LEVEL/ELEMENT
DESCRIPTION
RATING/SCALE
Remembering
Recalling facts, terms, basic concepts and answers
1
Understanding
Demonstrating understanding of facts and ideas by interpreting and
describing main ideas in one's own words
2
Applying
Solving problems by acquiring applied knowledge, facts,
techniques and rules in a different way
3
Analyzing
Examining information and making inferences and finding
evidence to support generalisations
4
Evaluating
Presenting and defending opinions by making judgements about
information or quality of work
5
Creating
Organising information in a different way or proposing alternative
solutions
6
Source: Authors’ adaptation from Anderson et al. 2001, 67– 68
13
TABLE 3: The Greenlaw and Deloach 6 level rubric
LEVEL/ELEMENT
DESCRIPTION
RATING/SCALE
Level 0
Off-the-subject or otherwise unscorable
0
Unilateral
descriptions
Students paraphrase, repeat and restate the question, define terms
Simple “good” or “bad” statements, Add little or nothing new to the
issue or question
1
Simplistic/
Alternative
arguments
They take a side but do not explore other alternatives, make
unsupported assertions, simplistic arguments e.g. giving an example,
An assertion, without evidence, often in the form of a question, Cite
simple rules, ‘‘laws’’ as proof
Do not address conflicts with opposing views or do not explore them
2
Basic analysis
Attempt to analyse an argument or competing arguments and
evaluate it/them with evidence, casual observation, anecdotal, datum
(vs. data)
Assertions with explicit evidence offered, often list numerous factors
as evidence but do not integrate them within a logical framework,
no clear conclusion or choice made
3
Theoretical Inference
Employ the use of (economic) theory to make a cohesive argument.
logical statements based on the discipline’s accepted model/school(s)
of thought, identify assumptions, challenge a key assumption of
another’s theory,
4
Empirical Inference
Introducing empirical evidence; historical data to “test” the validity
of an argument, use data to reach a clear conclusion or to choose
between alternative, challenge the validity of another’s empirical
measures/evidence
5
Merging values with
analysis
Able to move beyond objective analysis to incorporate subjective
interests, argue that although there is (positive) evidence to validate
the use of a particular policy, there are other (normative)
consequences that must be considered; select a particular policy on
some normative basis, from several using positive evidence to
support
6
Source: Greenlaw and Deloach 2001
TABLE 4: Summary Statistics
N Sample size (no. of posts)
62
No. of posts to no. of discussion threads
62 to 25
Average no. of posts to no. of discussion threads
3 to 2
No. of Posters
37
Frequency of responses (how long did it take students to respond)
on the day to 2 weeks later
Length of responses (paragraphs, 1 liners)
on average 1 paragraph
Source: Author’s own
14
TABLE 5: Discussion topics and themes per discussion post
DESCRIPTION
CONTENT OF
POSTS
THEMES
Short (1 sentence, 10 words and less)
4%
Long (More than 1 sentence/ hyperlinks/YouTube videos)
96%
General (Budget Speech, China)
48%
Economy (Intro to Micro)
8%
Demand and Supply
8%
Elasticity
4%
Production & Costs
4%
South African Economy
24%
Market Structures
4%
Source: Authors’ own
TABLE 6: Comparison of Rubric Outcomes
RATING/SCALE
4 LEVEL COGNITIVE
PRESENCE
6 LEVEL
GREENLAW AND
DELOACH
6 LEVEL
REVISED
BLOOM
Actual Posts
Expected posts
0
NA
NA
7
NA
1
13
18.3% of 62 = 11
24
7
2
25
27% of 62 = 16
14
13
3
7
32.4% of 62 = 20
8
15
4
6
19.8% of 62 = 12
6
9
5
NA
NA
2
2
6
NA
NA
1
3
Not categorised
11
2.5% of 62 = 1
13
Source: Authors’ own
15
