EJEL Volume 6 Issue 1
March 2008

Evaluating Online Dialogue on “Security” Using a Novel Instructional Design

Payal Arora
Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, USA

This paper explores evaluation strategies to gauge the impact of a novel instructional design on international community participation online. This is done by conceptualizing and devising indicators for measuring “engagement” online amongst marginalized adult communities worldwide. In doing so, a review of online community participation and evaluation literature is conducted. In comparing dialogue sessions based on an ongoing traditional model to the new instructional approach, various challenges are faced in “measuring” asynchronous discussion, particularly in what constitutes as “engagement”. While the initial findings of marginal increase in engagement with the adapted instructional approach is not sufficient to prove that the new model works, this paper demonstrates various strategies/ challenges in evaluating dialectic engagement. This is useful to researchers and practitioners involved in understanding and enhancing community participation online, especially amongst disadvantaged and marginalized communities nationally and globally.

Keywords: online evaluation, instructional design, community participation, international, marginalized, engagement

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