An investigation of the use of threaded discussion in the blog environment wi̇th respect to the factors affecting students' course satisfaction

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of threaded discussion in the blog environment with respect to the factors that influence students' course satisfaction. The sample consisted of 72 students from Abant İzzet Baysal University and Kırıkkale University, Faculty of Education, Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, taking the Multimedia Design and Production course. One group from each university contributed to the study, one as the experimental group and the other as the control group. Students in both groups were requested to share their materials and reports about the topics covered in the course in the blog environment. Threaded discussion in the blog environment was applied in the course with the experimental group, and the students were asked to participate in asynchronous threaded discussions and provided immediate feedback on the quality of their participation by the researchers. Material preparation guidelines developed by the researchers were given to the students prior to each assignment. In this study, a frequently employed semi-experimental model in social sciences, unpaired control group pattern, was used. The data was collected from the students using self-report questionnaires on each factor both before and after the application. Covariance analysis (ANCOVA) was performed on the collected data to reveal the effect of using threaded discussion in the blog environment on students' beliefs regarding blogging and peer evaluation. Multiple regression analysis was performed to investigate the factors that affect students' course satisfaction. The findings indicated that perceived learning, sense of community, collaborative learning, and threaded discussion were the variables that respectively predicted course satisfaction. On the otherhand, it was revealed that the course satisfaction scores of the students did not vary with respect to the variables including blog, peer evaluation, and the ability to organize multimedia features.