The effects of peer-interaction styles in team blogs on students' cognitive thinking and blog participation

Deep cognitive thinking refers to a learner's purposeful and conscious manipulation of ideas toward meaningful learning. Strategies such as journaling/blogging and peer feedback have been found to promote deep thinking. This article reports a research study about the effects of two different blog leader styles on students' deep thinking as exhibited on blogs. Thirty-four students in two sections of a class were assigned in three to five member groups and blogged for 10 weeks. In the first section, the "starters" of each week's blog introduced articles with two alternative views about a current topic, posted a few questions, and the rest of the group responded to the questions. In contrast, the "starters" in the second section wrote a post and the rest of the team commented on the post. Data analyses revealed that different starter styles influenced both the quantity and quality of starters' posts as well as peer feedback.