Abstract

Discussions online allow to communicate together at any time and place for the teacher and learners. The online discussion activities develop a collaborative environment and reduce the isolation of learners studying after class. This study focused on the activity of online discussion which supports collaborative learning. The study intended to investigate the impact of online discussion learning on college student achievement in a campus-based International Trade Information System course. The study compared student achievement with and without the assistance of online discussion learning. The findings revealed that students with the assistance outperformed those without the assistance. The tendency existed that students who spent a greater amount of time in the online discussion environment, posted more messages in the environment, or logged onto the environment more frequently were more likely to reach higher performance levels. In addition, the factor of the amount of time student spent in the online discussion environment emerged as a positive predictor of student achievement.