Replicating the Use of a Cognitive Presence Measurement Tool

The article I read was about the replication of a study done in the 1990's by Archer, Garrison, and Anderson. The four listed above attempted to write a venn diagram to explain the learning experience from Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) students. Their goal was to see if they could develop a coding tool to measure the quality and effectiveness of online communication. The replication was done in an attempt to see if the coding tool that was developed by Archer, Garrison and Anderson would be an efficient and whether there would be enough accuracy between the coding to use it as a valid tool.

I personally think that it would be too difficult to determine whether or not a persons online communication class experience is of good quality without having to spend hours reading each and every posting. On top of being time consuming, I think it really has to be noted what the purpose of the online communication board, i.e. discussion board would be used for in a course. Often times, in classes I've taken in the past, people would just go on and post comments, only because it was mandatory and not so much because it would be helpful to them. In those instances the idea of the online communication would have a very low quality and even lower effectiveness.

In other instances, students who go through and read articles to that could be used in the course would be very helpful. I recently took a class where everyone has to post comments to a listserv, which was mandatory, but was used as an online Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) guide. For example, I could go to this online posting and look for something I may be having trouble with and would ideally be able to get an answer to.