Background/Purpose Online communication is becoming a large part of daily life. However, is our modern communication apparatus being used for meaningful exchanges? This study sought to examine the types of knowledge that were posted on the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) online forum between 2004 and 2010. This NASPE forum allows online discussion about physical education. This board is organized into 29 sections spanning a variety of issues. Sections are separated into discussion threads. Users are free to post comments and questions on these threads.
Method In this study, posted messages were used as data. To provide a minimum level of discussion only 450 of the most used threads were analyzed. Paragraphs within each thread were coded to determine the information exhibited. Coding was carried out using a numeric system developed by the researchers. Inter/intra-observer reliability was established at 80%. Information codes included: opinions, experiential, artifacts, off-topic, and miscellaneous. Also, unique ideas within each paragraph were tabulated for each thread. Coded data were statistical analysis using, ANOVA, Spearman Correlations, and Regression processes.
Analysis/Results Descriptive statistics revealed 36% of posts were opinions, 34% contained experiential knowledge and 6% artifacts. Spearman correlations revealed a moderate correlation between experiential knowledge and unique ideas (r=.421). Finally, stepwise regression analysis indicated that experiential knowledge was a significant predictor (rē=.53) of unique concepts.
Conclusions These results indicate that this message board has facilitated diverse online discussion about Physical Education. Unique concept exhibition seem to be related to the amount of experiential knowledge discussed.