A blog could be an important tool for education in the era of web 2.0 which features participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration. Especially, it focused on interaction between users. The blog users easily create new things by sharing their own information or knowledge and collaborating with each other(Huh & Kang, 2010). Learners can increase critical, analytical, creative, intuitive, and problem-solving their abilities through the blog and establish learning communities actively by interacting each other collaboratively in the blog. This interactive blog could help the learners perform the WBCL(web-based collaborative learning) which is defined as a collaborative process where interactively connected learners on the learning environment based on the web discuss and exchange their ideas to solve common problems successfully. The learners could perform the collaborative learning more easily on the blogs.
In the process of WBCL using blogs, the interaction between learners can be a critical success factor for desirable learning performances including learners’ satisfaction or achievement. Learners can process information precisely through the interaction. It leads to high understanding and high achievement(Kim, Hwang, & Kwak, 2006).
Recently the flow experience is emerging as an key factor for learners’ active participation or collaborative learning(Kim and Kim, 2006; Ryu, Kim, Park, & Park, 2010; Park and Kim, 2006). Csikszentmihalyi(1975) defines it as “the holistic experience that people feel when they act with total involvement. If a learner experiences the flow in the learning process, he feels joyful for learning activities and learning process and actively participates in the process through interacting and collaborating with other learners(Gye & Kim, 2008; Park & Kim, 2006). It could be applied to the blog WBCL. If a learner experience flow state, he can increase the interaction with other learners on the blog of web. It also can influence a leaner’s satisfaction or achievement(Kim and Kim, 2006; Moon & Kim, 2011). Although the flow experience and interaction between learners are critical factors in the blog WBCL, it is little discussed in the existing blog WBCL literatures, especially flow as an antecedent of interaction and interaction as a mediating factor between flow and satisfaction or flow and achievement. Therefore this aimed to identify a structured relationship among flow experience of a learner, interaction between learners, satisfaction and achievement in the WBCL using blogs and analyze mediating effects of interaction between learners on the relationships between flow and satisfaction, and between flow and achievement.
The specific research questions were as follows;
1. Is there any significant correlation between flow experience, interaction between learners (in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality), satisfaction and achievement in the web-based collaborative learning using blogs?
2. Does the interaction between learners (in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality) serve as a mediating variable when the flow experience predicts variables of satisfaction in web-based collaborative learning using blogs?
3. Does the interaction between learners (in-degree centrality, out-degree centrality) serve as a mediating variable when the flow experience predicts variables of achievement in web-based collaborative learning using blogs?
In this study, the participants were 40 students who took ‘Korean Government’ subject at the G university located in Gyeonggi-do, Korea and 33 students who took ‘e-Government’ subject at the S university located in the same province. The reason is that the two universities or two classes could offer enough number of observations for this experiment. The factor of university or class might not affect the experimental results because the both subjects were the same major courses in the public administration and led by the same instructor. Although totally 73 students participated in the blog WBCL, finally 64 students were included in the analysis because four students who did not participate in the presentation of team s, three students who did not answered the questionnaire faithfully, and two students who were not good at Korean-writing as foreigners and participated little in the blog WBCL were excluded. They consisted of 31 men and 33 women by sex and 31 juniors and 34 seniors.
14 teams were formed and each team is composed of five to six team members autonomously or non-autonomously. A team activity room on the instructor’s blog is allocated to each team. The students learned theoretical issues in the off-line face-to-face class and performed team activities on the instructor’s blog through collaborative interaction between the other members during seven weeks. The subject of team assignments are ‘solving conflicts in local governments’ and ‘solving problems of websites of local governments’which are non-structured problem-solving type of assignments.
The major findings of this are as follows;
First, as a result of correlation analysis of flow, in-degree centrality and satisfaction, the flow variable has the significant high positive correlation with satisfaction (r = .62, p < .01) but has the insignificant positive correlation with in-degree centrality. The in-degree centrality has the insignificant positive correlation with satisfaction. As a result of correlation analysis of flow, out-degree centrality and satisfaction, the flow variable has the significant positive correlation with out-degree centrality(r = .28, p < .05) and the out-degree centrality has the significant positive correlation with satisfaction(r = .30, p < .05). As a result of correlation analysis of flow, in-degree centrality and achievement, the flow variable has the significant positive correlation with achievement (r = .26, p < .05) and in-degree centrality has the significant low positive correlation with achievement(r = .21, p < .01). As a result of correlation analysis of flow, out-degree centrality and achievement, flow variable has the significant positive correlation with out-degree centrality(r = .28, p < .05) and out-degree centrality has the significant positive correlation with achievement(r = .36, p < .01).
Second, findings from regression analysis on a mediating effect of interaction between learners on the causal relationship between flow and satisfaction and flow and achievement by three steps of Baron & Kenny(1986) are as the following. First, as a result of the regression analysis on mediating effect of in-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and satisfaction, on the first stage, flow variable positively and significantly predicted satisfaction (β = .62, p < .05) but failed to predict significantly in-degree centrality (β = .12, p > .05) on the second stage. Accordingly, it revealed no mediating effect of in-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and satisfaction.
Second, as a result of the regression analysis on mediating effect of out-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and satisfaction, on the first stage, flow variable positively and significantly predicted satisfaction (β = .62, p < .05) and on the second stage, the flow positively and significantly predicted out-degree centrality (β = .28, p < .05) but out-degree centrality failed to predict significantly satisfaction (β = .13, p > .05) in control of flow. Accordingly, it revealed no mediating effect of out-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and satisfaction.
Third, as a result of the regression analysis on mediating effect of in-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and achievement, on the first stage, flow variable positively and significantly predicted achievement (β = .26, p < .05) but failed to predict significantly in-degree centrality (β = .12, p > .05) on the second stage. Accordingly, it revealed no mediating effect of in-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and achievement.
Fourth, as a result of the regression analysis on mediating effect of out-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and achievement, on the first stage, flow variable positively and significantly predicted achievement (β = .26, p < .05) and on the second stage, the flow positively and significantly predicted out-degree centrality (β = .28, p < .05), but out-degree centrality failed to predict significantly satisfaction (β = .20, p > .05) in control of flow. Accordingly, it revealed no mediating effect of out-degree centrality on the causal relationship between flow and achievement.
Based on these findings, this suggests some implications.
First, it is important that for enhancement of learners’ performances including satisfaction and achievement, learning environment where learners are able to experience the optimal flow and interact with other learners actively should be designed in the WBCL using blog. For that, an instructor should help the learners to take sufficient education for not only understanding blog but also using it freely and an instructor.
Second, the next research can focus on interaction between instructor and learners. Because blog-based WBCL is unfamiliar for learners who experience blog newly, the instructor’s proper management might be a critical factor in order that flow leads to satisfaction and achievement.
Third, it recommends that connecting blog activities to off-line meeting or mobile devices be researched. In this study, the interaction between learners was performed in not only blogs but also off-line meetings and mobile phones because the learners seemed not to be familiar to using blogs. If the instructor present some time of face-to-face meeting in the off-line class or encourage learners to use mobile phones in real-time, more precise effect of interaction between learners on learning performances could be measured.
Fourth, a team leader’s role should be investigated in the WBCL using blog. In this study, a team leader emerged naturally in each team despite no intended selection. In addition, a team which has a more responsible and active leader resulted in high flow experience, interaction between learners, satisfaction, and achievement. Consequently, the next study is recommended to investigate the role of the team leader.
Lastly, the quantitative and qualitative research methods could be integrated to prove more evident causal relationship in the WBCL using blog. The reflection journal and group or one-to-one interview with learners may offer real factor which affect the performance they feel. Additionally, the measurement of flow experience was performed after team activities finished but the next research needs to diversify the measurement time and method.
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