Abstract—The high drop out or attrition rate in many online
classes as well as concerns on their quality have attracted
research in online student engagement. Of particular
importance among the dimensions of engagement is cognitive
engagement because of its close affinity with learning. However,
the distance factor between teachers and online students and the
mental nature of cognitive processes make cognitive engagement
difficult to observe. Academic analytics provide a picture of
student engagement but learning is far from quantifiable. This
paper attempts to explore the conditions that support cognitive
engagement in online classes through discourse analysis of the
discussion forum. Results showed five conditions that could have
defined student engagement: nature of discussion questions, the
mitigating factors for the level of student response, learning
community, student characteristics, and teacher facilitation. Of
these five, the nature of discussion questions, quality of student
response, and learning community appeared to be the best to
promote cognitive engagement.
Index Terms—Cognitive engagement, interculturality,
learning community, online interaction, student engagement,
discourse analysis.
L. T. Casimiro is with the Adventist International Institute of Advanced
Studies, Cavite, Philippines (e-mail: leni@aiias.edu).
Cite: Leni T. Casimiro, "Cognitive Engagement in Online Intercultural Interactions: Beyond Analytics," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 441-447, 2016.