1. Evolution of students Participation in discussions
forum in programming course
In Programming course, seven discussion topics were suggested by the students.
Results from Programming course records showed that students responded to the
discussion boards while studying with Programming course by sending a total number
of 115 messages. Assuming that every student in Programming course (26 students)
should participate by sending at least one message to each discussion board, this
number (115) represents only 58.2% of the predicted total number of messages (182)
that should be sent to the discussion boards. In other words, the average number of
messages sent by each student throughout Programming course was 4.42, compared
with the ideal total of 7.
The total number of messages posted to the discussion boards
Number of Total number of messages Actual total number of Percent
students assumed to be sent messages sent by students
26 182 115 58.2%
Some students ignore participation in discussions and some of them have positive
attitude toward discussion. The minimum number of messages per student sent to the
discussion boards was zero. However, three students posted between seven and nine
messages during studying in Programming course.
The minimum and maximum number of messages per student
Number of messages per N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
26 2 7 4.42 1.65343
student
2- The number of messages per student
Discussion topic Number messages %
N=26
Lesson 1 18 69.2
Lesson 2 22 84.6
Lesson 3 13 50
Lesson 4 14 63.8
Lesson 5 19 73.1
Lesson 6 14 63.8
Lesson 7 15 57.7
Total 115 Mean = 4.4231

2. Patterns and examples of students’ interactive responses
Patterns Percent Examples of responses
Self-introduction 45.65% ‘I think […]’.
‘My Point is […]’
‘My view is this equation […]’.
Statements that 16.87% 'I think Issa has the correct answer […]'.
comment on 'Of course Hamed, for example […]'.
another message 'I Agree with Ali, for example […]'.
‘I found the same results as Mohamed […]’.
Responding to the 12.32% ‘Hello Mr […], I'll do that at home because there is no time
tutor’s views or today’.
advice ‘Thank Mr[…], I'll do that work later’
Responding to 5.62% 'I think Ali's found the correct answer. My answer is
accept or reject approximately the same as his'.
others’ views and
opinions without
explanation
Responding to 39.43% 'Yes this is correct. A method is a Procedure, it does some
accept or reject work. If the procedure runs when an event occurs, like
others’ views and clicking a button, then it is called event handler'.
opinions with
more explanation
Patterns and examples of students’ cognitive and content-related responses
Patterns Percent Examples of responses
Solution without 78.43% ‘.Net framework consists of class libraries and common
explanation language runtime which are file systems and small
supportive programs that help to run all languages (C++,
visual basic, C, ………. ext) in the computer.
’.
Solution 12.96% ‘The Microsoft .NET Framework is a software
accompanied technology that is available with several Microsoft
with explanation Windows operating systems. It includes a large library of
pre-coded solutions to common programming problems
and a virtual machine that manages the execution of
programs written specifically for the framework.’.
Alternative 1% ‘The utilities are applications used mainly by the
solution computer it self to serve the computer i.e. these
application doesn't benefit the user immediately but it
protect his work, maintain his computer ..etc’.

3. Patterns Percent Examples of responses
Question directly 0% - No response
related to the
discussion topic
Question for 0% - No response
more
clarification
Repeating 6% ‘Net framework consists of class libraries and common
information language runtime…’
contained in the
course materials
Repeating 3% ‘Microsoft .NET is much more than XML Web services’.
information
contained in the
discussion topic
(Cnt_repd)
Conclusion 0% - No response
(Cnt_conc)