For the first few weeks of this class, I struggled with how I would participate. I’m very comfortable online; I use social media in my daily life to connect with long-distance friends and family, and I’m a member of online communities. But participating on the class board felt different. I think it’s because my default behavior is to lurk. I read comments and follow discussions, but I only chime in if I have something in particular to say. In a class setting, I want to be sure I’m participating so I work a little harder to come up with something to say. I thought I’d look a little further into the phenomenon of lurking and its place in online classes.
The first thing I discovered is that lurkers are very common! According to the theory of the “90-9-1 rule,” lurkers are 90% of a given internet community. Lurkers are sometimes regarded as free-loaders, but more often are encouraged so that new members can learn community standards before participating. Studies on technical support for open-source technologies show that lurkers may also gather valuable information that better equips them to answer questions and contribute content.
What about in an online classroom? While lurkers in online courses may appear to be disengaged slackers, there is some evidence that lurkers are engaged students who are simply more introverted, “listener” types. However, they tend to get lower grades than their more vocal classmates. This same study (which has many interesting results!) found that students frequently explained that they were “low visibility participators” because online classrooms are new environments that take time to learn to navigate. Like me, some students are reluctant to participate solely for the sake of being present. For the most part, participation mirrored in-person classrooms, with some students being more vocal and some sitting back. What I’d be interested to learn is whether the students who are quiet in person are the same who are quiet online, or if different formats elicit different participation styles.
Here’s a list from one of the studies I cited spelling out how to best react to lurkers in online courses:
I like this post. I think the norms of online teaching are still evolving, so I appreciate the research you found and cited (I’d include a section at the bottom of your post with the citation).
Talk soon. By the way, you are more than a lurker no? Dean