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Examining the impact of teacher scaffolding in the knowledge building environment: Insights from students’ interaction patterns, social epistemic networks, and academic performance

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Abstract

Promoting progressive discourse and sustained inquiry is a focus area of knowledge building research. Although different approaches for scaffolding productive discourse have been documented, the experimental investigation into the impact of teacher scaffolding on students’ knowledge building processes and outcomes in technology-supported environments is limited. Therefore, we designed a quasi-experimental study to examine the impact of teacher scaffolding on students’ interaction patterns, social-epistemic networks, and academic performance. Over a 14-week course, data were collected from undergraduates’ online interactions, discourse in the Knowledge Forum, and their group artifacts. We employed lag sequence analysis, social epistemic network signature, and the Kruskal-Wallis test to analyze the data and compare the differences between the control and experimental groups. Findings demonstrate that teacher scaffolding can effectively enhance students’ reflective behaviors, foster social and epistemic engagement, and improve academic performance within technology-supported knowledge building environments. This study provides valuable insights into the design and implementation of teacher scaffolding to facilitate student knowledge building processes and outcomes.

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Data availability

The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to the participants who made this research possible and to the editor and reviewers who greatly helped strengthen this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau, China

    Zuokun Li & Pey-Tee Emily Oon

  2. Aberdeen Institute of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China

    Shaoming Chai

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  1. Zuokun Li
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  3. Shaoming Chai
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the writing of this manuscript. The work of Zuokun Li included designing the study, collecting and analyzing the data, interpreting the results, and writing the initial draft of the manuscript. Pey-Tee Emily Oon contributed by critically reviewing the manuscript and providing valuable input in writing and editing. Shaoming Chai made contributions in the areas of conceptualization, writing, reviewing, and editing, as well as providing project supervision.

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Correspondence to Shaoming Chai.

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Li, Z., Oon, PT.E. & Chai, S. Examining the impact of teacher scaffolding in the knowledge building environment: Insights from students’ interaction patterns, social epistemic networks, and academic performance. Educ Inf Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-024-12535-z

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