Oral Presentation in Postgraduate Conference in Lingustics, Sussex

1. A keyword analysis between lone
posts and initiating posts in MOOC
discussions
Shi Min Chua @shiminchua
A postgraduate linguistics workshop and conference
at University of Sussex July 10th & 11th 2018
Why did nobody reply
to my post?

2. MOOCs
CoursesOpen OnlineMassive
Large number of learners
-registered learners: up to 40000
-learners who take part in the
discussion: up to 5000
-Free
-No pre-requisite
-No face-to-face
-Asynchronous
-various subjects
-evolving learning
design

4. Post
Reply
Social Learning

5. Online Discussion as a Space
Technological
Affordance
Content
● Dialogic Space (Wegerif, 2010): Promote reflection and thinking skills
● Space for Learning (Walsh & Li, 2013): Positive and Focused
Language
• Dialogic expansion/contraction
(Martin & White, 2005)
• Heteroglosia (Baktin, 1956)
• Stance (Du Bois, 2007)
• Knowledge co-constructions ???

6. Types of Posts
Initiating Post
Lone Post
Research Question:
• Why do some learners’ posts
receive replies?
Learners Lone Posts Initiating
Posts
Number of
Posts
117863 32080
Number of
Tokens
6162230 2401795

7. Motivation for examining
Initiating Posts vs. Lone Posts
● Probability of posting again increased (Joyce & Kraut, 2006)
● MOOC-related study (Khe, 2008)
● sharing information
● very arrogant and oppressive with their positions
● overwhelmed by postings

8. Why do some learners’ posts receive
replies and trigger discussions?
● Time of posting
● Forum design
● Disciplines (Joyce, Anand, Kraut, 2014)
● Size & topic (Himelboim, 2008)
Linguistic Factors?
● Self-introduction referencing what has
been discussed or related to topic
● Request only is not attracting replies
(Joyce, Anand, Kraut, 2014)
• Dialogic expansion/
contraction (Martin &
White, 2005)
• Heteroglosia (Baktin,
1956)
• Stance (Du Bois, 2007)

9. Methods
Corpus
Driven
Corpus
Based
Keywords
Analysis • Dialogic expansion/contraction
(Martin & White, 2005)
• Heteroglosia (Baktin, 1956)
• Stance (Du Bois, 2007)
• Other features/phenomenon???
-Knowledge co-constructionsLexical Bundles
statistical comparison or cut-
off threshold at 40 per million
words (Biber, Conrad, &
Cortes, 2004)

10. Corpus
Abbreviation
Number of
Social
Learners
Number of
Learners'
Comments
Number of
words
contributed by
learners
Number of
Facilitators
Number of
Facilitators'
Comments
Number of
words
contributed by
facilitators
Technology 609 7848 444440 13 571 28446
History 994 23108 1357658 5 1379 56555
Technology 1968 10310 418999 6 1018 43014
Linguistics 2199 14949 1103306 21 7164 342405
Social Sciences 5722 41175 2325367 11 2988 123806
Finances 637 10033 820829 5 363 32427
Management 934 8415 444294 6 691 16373
Astronomy 1986 24084 929592 8 1339 54180
Health 3788 30923 1443443 5 260 10364
Sciences 1344 8408 419278 5 735 56297
Healthcare 1320 10518 706377 7 391 8872
Geography 2004 14344 792637 7 809 43319
Sum 23505 204115 11206220 99 17708 816058

11. Keyword Analysis Comparison:
Lone posts vs. Initiating posts
Number of posts Number of token
Abbreviation
Initiating
posts
Lone
posts
Replies Initiating
posts
Lone
posts
Replies
Technology 1151 4731 1966 92680 262140 89620
History 4176 8652 10280 330828 567627 459203
Technology 1900 4822 3588 105238 169263 144498
Linguistics 5500 4449 5000 501186 297458 304662
Social
Sciences 4841 30792 5542 406832 1652576 265959
Finances 1845 2612 5576 188831 232226 399772
Management 1207 5905 1303 73449 310497 60348
Astronomy 4386 11724 7974 201854 420635 307103
Health 2661 23109 5153 197137 1024804 221502
Sciences 1650 4331 2427 93420 216450 109408
Healthcare 720 8525 1273 70113 572934 63330
Geography 2043 8211 4090 140227 435620 216790
Total 32080 117863 54172 2401795 6162230 2642195

12. Keyword Analysis: Cut-off Criteria
● Comparing initiating posts to lone posts
● the log-likelihood ratio test, p <
0.000000000001 (Flowerdew, 2015)
● Keyness indicator (effect size): Bayes
Factor > 10 (Wilson, 2013)
● Normalized frequency > 5 per 100,000
(McEnery, 2016)
● Dispersion Measure, Gries’ Deviation of
Proportion (Gries’ DP, Gries, 2008; Lijffijt &
Gries, 2012) < 0.30
Learners Lone
Posts
Initiating
Posts
Keywords 77 70

13. Analysis of Keywords
Step 1
● Concordance lines of each keyword
● Salient meaning/function (McEnery, 2016)
● Biber et al (1998), Wmatrix (Rayson, 2017), Fairclough (2004), Halliday (2004), Martin
& White (2004)
● Categorized based on function related to dialogic learning – three theories. explicitly
Step 2
● Functional grouping of keywords
● Interpretations based on groups of keywords?
Step 3
● Discourse/conversation analysis of selected keywords (O’Keeffe & Walsh, 2016)

14. Pronouns
Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Pronouns he I, my, our, their
Indefinite pronouns anybody, anyone, any everyone, every

15. Greetings:
Among 4375 instances, 975 “Hi everyone”, 868 “Hello everyone”
Appreciation:
428 “Thank(s)… everyone”
Making stances
-104 “not everyone…”
-”…we need everyone to control our daily waste…”
Narrative
“…especially when considering the spread of disease and how closely everyone
lived in the cities…”
Keyword: everyone in lone posts

16. Keyword: anybody in initiating posts
Request for recommendation
“…So, does anybody have a good suggestion for a text book on Anaconda, Python and
Pandas?”
Offering recommendation
“…Suggest anybody else that may still be receiving 'file not found' for exercise 6 could try the
same thing…”
Asking for information
“Can anybody let me into the secret of the little ball moving between 28 and 32 somethings on
the right hand side of the animation.”

17. Keyword: anybody in initiating posts
Looking for shared experience
“I've logged my food intake as always but dont count the calories as i find it tedious , i have been
eating healthy most of the time…Anybody else not counting calories?”
“Is it just me or does anybody else have issues find <sic> the PwC paper?” Is this a frequent
phrase?
(anybody else)
Expressing stance
“How can it be that anybody can have children irrespective of their financial situation
/circumstances and expect society to pick up the bill?...” (narrative)

18. Stance
Expression
Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Modals/Modal
expression
might, would could will, need, able
Hedging perhaps, seems, sort (of)
Quantifier (any) all, lot, much, (every)
Booster surely, just really, very, definitely, always
Epistemic
expression
wonder, wondering aware, understanding, learned
Thoughts feel, feeling, think, agree
Emotion keen, hope, hoping, looking,
forward, enjoy, enjoyed, love
Evaluation wrong difficult, easy, excellent, better,
interesting, informative, great,
important, good, new
Negation cannot, ca, n't, (wrong) (agree)
Uncertainty
Expanding dialogic space
Welcoming alternatives
Certainty
No alternatives
Contracting dialogic space

19. Stance
Expression
Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Modals/Modal
expression
might, would could will, need, able
Hedging perhaps, seems, sort (of)
Quantifier (any) all, lot, much, (every)
Booster surely, just really, very, definitely, always
Epistemic
expression
wonder, wondering aware, understanding, learned
Thoughts feel, feeling, think, agree
Emotion keen, hope, hoping, looking,
forward, enjoy, enjoyed, love
Evaluation wrong difficult, easy, excellent, better,
interesting, informative, great,
important, good, new
Negation cannot, ca, n't, (wrong) (agree)
Uncertainty
Expanding dialogic space
Welcoming alternatives
Certainty
No alternatives
Contracting dialogic space
719/990 I wonder
262/338 I .. wondering
“…I wonder if we have love
sickness today but we call it an
obsession…”
From what I have learned about
the spread of the plague and other
recurring infectious

20. Stance
Expression
Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Modals/Modal
expression
might, would could will, need, able
Hedging perhaps, seems, sort (of)
Quantifier (any) all, lot, much, (every)
Booster surely, just really, very, definitely, always
Epistemic
expression
wonder, wondering aware, understanding, learned
Thoughts feel, feeling, think, agree
Emotion keen, hope, hoping, looking,
forward, enjoy, enjoyed, love
Evaluation wrong difficult, easy, excellent, better,
interesting, informative, great,
important, good, new
Negation cannot, ca, n't, (wrong) (agree)
Uncertainty
Expanding dialogic space
Welcoming alternatives
Certainty
No alternatives
Contracting dialogic space
“… so I am looking forward to
learning more about the beliefs
regarding health…”
“…I hope I will be able to
contribute more to the digital
accessibility…”
“…I also really enjoy using
kineasthetic activities…”

21. Stance
Expression
Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Modals/Modal
expression
might, would could will, need, able
Hedging perhaps, seems, sort (of)
Quantifier (any) all, lot, much, (every)
Booster surely, just really, very, definitely, always
Epistemic
expression
wonder, wondering aware, understanding, learned
Thoughts feel, feeling, think, agree
Emotion keen, hope, hoping, looking,
forward, enjoy, enjoyed, love
Evaluation wrong difficult, easy, excellent, better,
interesting, informative, great,
important, good, new
Negation cannot, ca, n't, (wrong) (agree)
Uncertainty
Expanding dialogic space
Welcoming alternatives
Certainty
No alternatives
Contracting dialogic space
2318 instances of agree
53 n’t agree
37 not agree
2715 don't
1114 can't
1042 didn't
670 doesn't
466 isn't
399 couldn't
369 wouldn't
362 wasn't
318 haven't
210 won't
180 aren't
145 shouldn't
110 hadn't
71 hasn't
66 weren't
602 n't know
541 n't have
373 n't think
232 n't be
209 n't see
198 n't get
168 n't understand
162 n't really
162 n't want
152 n't seem
131 n't it
126 n't work
120 n't find
112 n't the

22. Connectors and Comparative terms
Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Connectors if, or, then, example, e.g. also, and
Comparative terms than, rather, else, same more

23. Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Punctuation ,…-();?"': !.
Uncategorized 1, one, two, numbers, missing,
following, why, whether
like, main, currently, working,
opportunity, education,
environment, mind, week, well
Grammatical the, that, there, here, does, did,
was, were, 's, on, by
am, 'm, have, for, about, with,
to
Discourse particles please, sorry thanks, thank
Verbs in past
tense/passive form
used, tried, came, called joined
Verbs in present
tense/infinitive form
affects, helps, achieve, work ,
gain, meet, improve
Speech act mean, explain, tell, says, say, told
Meta-language question, article information, course, knowledge
Uncategorized
Multiple meanings/functions, no salient meaning
Does not share meaning/function with other words

24. Initiating Posts Lone Posts
Punctuation ,…-();?"': !.
Uncategorized 1, one, two, numbers, missing,
following, why, whether
like, main, currently, working,
opportunity, education,
environment, mind, week, well
Grammatical the, that, there, here, does, did,
was, were, 's, on, by
am, 'm, have, for, about, with,
to
Discourse particles please, sorry thanks, thank
Verbs in past
tense/passive form
used, told, tried, came, called joined
Verbs in present
tense/infinitive form
affects, helps, achieve, work ,
gain, meet, improve
Speech act mean, explain, tell, says, say
Meta-language question, article information, course, knowledge
Uncategorized
Multiple meanings/functions, no salient meaning
Does not share meaning/function with other words
Question-related?
c.f. anyone,
anybody

25. Keyword: question, ?
introduce a question explicitly
“…your work is amazing and I have a question what happen if we mixed up soils pour…” and
“Question: does anybody knows what kind of a thing is 'a doddle'?...”
face-saving strategy
“…I hope this isn't a stupid question, but... what does…”
“A purely theoretical question - how different to now would the tides…”
● 100 randomly selected instances of “question” and “?” within a sentence, which were
distributed among 98 initiating posts, revealed several usage of this keyword

26. Keyword: question, ?
Rhetoric question to state own opinions or stances
“…And so the economic question, at what point does it become economically viable to terrace
the fields rather than let soil and water run away? My garden is on ...”
Intextuality
“…In terms of the question as to whether a leg is healthy if it performs the function…”
“…perhaps the question on the quiz for which the correct definition for…”.

27. Conclusions
●Initiating posts:
Addressing with indefinite pronouns, so anyone could respond, give agency to others
Questions and hedging to show uncertainty
Negation to voice out alternatives
●Lone posts:
Appreciation, Emotion, Evaluation
Booster to show certainty
Agreement
Self-mention
● Lone posts are not necessarily not favoured, they could be “liked”
● Stances occurs in both types of posts, what are the differences?

28. Discussions
● Is the difference between initiating posts and lone posts merely the frequency
of usage of the keywords found?
●Could keywords found in the initiating posts have the same or different
functions in the lone posts?
● How to investigate bare-assertion, in contrast to modals?
● Investigating a specific feature, such as modals, rather than only those key
modals?
● Co-occurance of keywords in a posting
●Logistic Regression, multi-dimensional analysis
●Accurate tagging and feature extraction is needed
● Linguistic profiling vs. Practical implication in online learning

29. Acknowledgement
● Dr Caroline Tagg, Prof Mike Sharples, Prof Bart Rienties
● Leverhulme Trust
● Course Providers
● shimin.chua@open.ac.uk