Description:
This paper presents some preliminary findings from a study with the two aims of examining: (i) gender differences in online participation and (ii) methods for obtaining better online debate. A number of research methods were used. The study involved a WebCT conference for a total population of 123 second year undergraduate students following a module on Communicating via Multimedia. Students were split into groups of 3-6 students. There were about 1500 contributions to the debates over 10 days. One result was that 70% of students stated that the approach taken was successful at getting them involved in critical debate (the 1999 score for the same question was 56%). Another result was that women read about 11% more items than men and men posted about 6% more items than women. Furthermore, women were under-represented in the top 20% of overall module grades and over-represented in the module fails. The paper explores these issues.