Dear Authors,

I enjoyed reading your study, which is timely and relevant. Overall, the problem, methodology and design answered the research question H1. I agree that when we use personalized posts with subject headings, we convey that we care about students as individuals and not numbers. Students who are more committed than others tend to respond to them rather than the non-personalized posts. I was surprised the results indicated an increase in non-personalized posts versus personalized ones. But nice work articulating several limitations that clearly clarified why the outcomes may have been skewed (two week Winter break, same course ID) with implications for further research to be conducted.

We know that quantitative is objective. Did you mean objectivity in the following statement: “However, this bias was minimized by using quantitative methods which rely on “subjectivity.” Consider replacing “subjectivity” with objectivity.

Overall, your study is unique and contributes to the field of online teaching.

Hi Joan,

Thanks so much for your feedback. We were actually surprised by the increase in non-personalized posts as well. However, we hope to address the "why" in our future research. Yes, we did mean "objectivity". Thanks for catching that! We appreciate you reviewing our study! Have a great week!

-John 

The study had many interesting points and the statistics provided more questions to be researched. Although, for the last seven years I have used personalizing DQ subject lines, my personal experience is it does stimulate participation. The question is does it stimulate quality of responses. Quality of responses is produced through instructor feedback and coaching, as well as additional questions posed to individual students and the class. Another point is does the personal subject line formatted help produce learning. This may occur if the student participation demonstrates additional research, critical thinking and critical analysis. Also, the sharing of experiences, challenging comments by peers and posing additional questions to expand the discussion helps stimulate learning. The instructor must use Classroom Assessment Techniques (CAT) to gauge and measure if learning is occurring and then pose additional questions to the class to help them expand the topics of discussion and apply concepts and theories. CAT can and should be class directed and personalized subject lines.

The personalizing of subject lines if tactfully formulated can stimulate interest. The approach to the class needs to be personalized to create an environment where students feel comfortable in responding and encouraged to respond.

Hi Jerome,

Thanks for your response! Yes, I agree that sometimes using a "catchy" title can be great way for an instructor to draw attention to the post! It can definitely allow the instructor to insert some of his or her own personality into the forum as well! Have a great day!

-John

Hi Swinton,

Thanks for your feedback! This is actually exactly how we felt as well! We thought that personalized DQ subject lines would stimulate more participation (number of posts per student). However, our study found that on a post to post basis, the finding indicated that there were less student posts in the classes with the personalized DQ subject lines. However, as you noted in your comments this could also be for a numerous amount of other reasons. The next step in our research will be to code the posts, see how many of the posts were substantive and to see if there were less questions in the classes with the personalized DQ posts because students may have possibly been able to navigate the forum easier. I agree that CATs are an important tool for us in the online environment as well. Thanks for your feedback!

-John

Hi Angela,

Thanks for your feedback on our study! I agree that personalizing the subject line headings can be great way to draw attention to certain posts such as our CATs. You are very welcome and thanks for reviewing our study!

-John

Thank you for this examination of the potential impact of instructor postings in the online classroom. As an online faculty member in both undergraduate and graduate level courses, the outcomes of this research are relevant and timely for me.

There are several questions and considerations the paper prompted for me, and I offer those here with the caveat that I have not had the opportunity to review the relevant literature. Some thoughts and suggestions may be a result of my own lack of information about the topic.

The introductory content and Student Participation and Academic Performance sections of the paper focus primarily on aspects of the online classroom that may affect students’ participation and success. Participation is referred to, interchangeably it seems, with the concept of “engagement.” If the two are indeed interchangeable, it may strengthen the discussion to include research that demonstrates student participation (presence and activity in the classroom, posting in discussion forums) is the same as student engagement. I tend to think of engagement as ownership and emotional investment in the activities of the course and related discussions. Additionally, the authors might consider how “success” is discussed. This concept is conflated with “positive e-learning experience,” “passing grades,” and “academic achievement.” Full discussion of each of these concepts may be beyond the scope of this paper; however, it may be important to clearly communicate the intention of each, if they are meant to reflect a singular outcome.

The mention of four major themes of course design uncovered in Lister’s (2014) study seemed disconnected from the other concepts discussed, and I was also unclear about the importance of the “Teaching-Learning-Process.” While each of these may be important to the research study, more clear connections between these ideas and those explicitly explored in this study are necessary to demonstrate relevance.

The section on Personalization Principle and Teacher Presence is very well done. It includes specific examples of personalization versus non-personalization and clearly connects the idea of an instructor’s personalization to a student’s feeling of connectedness within the classroom. This section notes previous research (Sobel, Sands, & Dunlap, 2009) that supports the relationship between personalized instructor responses and increased student efficacy. This entire section is well-cited and discussed, and I would encourage the authors to consider using this section introduce the paper. This quotation, “…every personalization in the classroom has the opportunity to impact the classroom environment for better or worse,” and the introductory and subsequent discussion around it are an excellent way to set up the related concepts of course design, student engagement, and classroom performance.

Throughout the paper, one finds various references to literature that either supports or calls into question the effectiveness of personalization in the online classroom. There is also reference to literature that addresses development of classroom community, student retention, student performance, online course design, and other concepts. These references and ideas seem somewhat scattered throughout the paper, and it is oftentimes challenging to infer the connection among them. Perhaps this could be addressed by including a clear introduction to the study followed by a comprehensive literature review in which each of the contributing concepts is addressed, discussed, and related to the others.

In the Methods section, only one significant item presented a challenge and was not addressed within the limitations. The authors indicate, “Classes were randomly assigned to include either personalized subject headings or the standard auto subject heading titles within instructor-generated forum posts.” A confounding factor not addressed, however, is whether there was any standardization or quality control in how the personalized posts were created. In other words, can we know that each of the four instructors was equally effective or “good at” creating personalized posts that would have had equal opportunity to engage their students? One other item that was not mentioned and that could have had an impact on the results of the study was the number of posts by the instructor (whether personalized or not) within the classroom.

Within the Discussion, the Overview seems to contain considerable information that might be more appropriately placed in the Implications section. From the mention of the Rodriguez-Keyes, Schneider, and Keenan (2013) study through the end of the section, the content seems to relate to implications of the study. For example, there is discussion of possible explanations and further research, both of which are related to the information included in the Overview.

This is a subject worth additional and careful evaluation. Online learning environments can present challenges for both instructors and students, and finding ways to improve engagement and success are necessary. Thank you for your work and research in this area.

Susan Hadley, Ph.D.
GCU Adjunct Professor

Hello Dr. Hadley,

Thank you for your thoughts and recommendations. Your feedback will be invaluable to our future success with this study and future extensions. I can appreciate what you are saying about participation. We may have left room for the assumption that participation means students are engaged. As instructors we would like to think those two terms are exclusive, yet realize that some can participate without being fully engaged. Great observation, this is something we can consider as we revise. For this study we were mostly looking at how successful participation (i.e. students meeting/exceeding participation expectations) as an indicator to course success. You bring up a good point regarding standardized subject personalization by the instructor. Each instructor did use the exact same format, but what was standardized is that we address the student(s) by name and loop in the class. We did remove instructor posts so they were not calculated in the results. We greatly appreciate all your feedback as this will help us to create a manuscript that can hopefully not only be informative, but help other online instructors in their courses.

Tom