Students in the online forum-based group submitted assignments more in the first two days and much less in the final two days than students in the control group. Online forum-based learning was associated with less procrastination than the control.

Results: Procrastination

- Students were emotionally resistant to forum-based online learning but recognized that it was helpful in reducing procrastination and plagiarism
- Students recognized that lecture learning is not enough but the majority still preferred a typical classroom approach

Results: Student Perception

Subjects: 40 undergraduate (mostly sophomore and some senior) students in the course C1, 80 undergraduate students (fresh- man) in C2, and 20 graduate students in C3

Methods: 
-Control Group and Forum-Based online learning group
-Measured procrastination (submission time) and plagiarism (students could not pick the same topic as another group or individual for their project)
-Measured student reactions and thoughts about forum-based online learning with 100 question questionnaire 

Villanova University

- Moodle.com
- Website where students can submit assignments, have discussions, collaborate on online projects, give and receive feedback
- In addition to typical classroom/lecture setting
- a "third space" that “emphasizes the faculty–student interactions in a free and cooperative environment” (Kang & Zhang, 2020)

Forum-Based Online Learning

Kang, X., & Zhang, W. (2020). An experimental case study on forum-based online teaching to improve student’s engagement and motivation in higher education. Interactive Learning Environments. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2020.1817758

An experimental case study on forum-based online teaching to improve student’s engagement and motivation in higher education

Subjects and Methods

This article looks at student productivity, engagement, and motiavtion through online forums in comparison to lectures.

- There was an increase of early homework submitters when students were in the online forum, in addition to fewer late submissions (reduced to less than 50% late submission rate compared to the regular online homework submission
- Majority of regular style homework was submitted on the 7th day, which was the final deadline. Amost none submitted it before day 5. The forum based submissions only had 30% of students wait until day 7 to submit
- Students who were asked to do in depth focus on a couple research articles and then give a presentation showed better understanding compared to those asked to write a research paper. They also reported lower stress
- Creating blocked work is better, both for final term papers and final presentations. Teachers that require students work on papers in small incriments over a span of time normally find better productivity with less repetition or plagiarism. 
- Around 80% of students agreed that information diversity could be increased on online discussion and more than 90% agreed that lecture was not enough for learning material
- However, the majority preferred to continue with normal lecture and regular homework (80%)

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