Gutiérrez-Páez, Nicolás Felipe, Patricia Santos, Davinia Hernández-Leo, and Mar Carrió. "A study of motivations, behavior, and contributions quality in online communities of teachers: A data analytics approach." Computers & Education 201 (2023): 104829.

Abstract

This paper presents a study conducted within an online community (OC) of pre-service teachers. Our aim is to better understand the relation between: community members' motivations in participating in these types of communities, their behavior within the community used as part of their training, as well as the quality of their learning design contributions. Two iterations of data gathering (several sources) were performed with a total of 91 participants. They reported their motivations to participate in these types of communities through questionnaires. Log data from their use of a particular platform was collected to quantify the behavioral engagement and the quality of the shared learning designs. Furthermore, the assessment of experts was also gathered as an additional measure of quality. A cross-case analysis leads us to problematize previous work suggesting relations between self-reported motivations and participants’ behavior within the community, or with the quality of their contributions. In contrast, the results show that behavior and the contributions' quality are affected by the incentives and the features implemented in the supporting platform of the online community. The study results have practical implications for teacher OC platforms, for example about the importance of offering and using features that provide self-awareness indicators about their actions and the quality of their contributions.