Anatomizing online collaborative inquiry using directional epistemic network analysis and trajectory tracking

Accurate assessment and effective feedback are crucial for cultivating learners' abilities of collaborative problem‐solving and critical thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions. Based on quantitative content analysis (QCA), there has been a methodological evolvement from descriptive statistics to sequential mining and to network analysis for mining coded discourse data. Epistemic network analysis (ENA) has recently gained increasing recognition for modelling and visualizing the temporal characteristics of online discussions. However, due to methodological restraints, some valuable information regarding online discussion dynamics remains unexplained, including the directionality of connections between theoretical indicators and the trajectory of thinking development. Guided by the community of inquiry (CoI) model, this study extended generic ENA by incorporating directional connections and stanza‐based trajectory tracking. By examining the proposed extensions with discussion data of an online learning course, this study first verified that the extensions are comparable with QCA, indicating acceptable assessment validity. Then, the directional ENA revealed that two‐way connections between CoI indicators could vary over time and across groups, reflecting different discussion strategies. Furthermore, trajectory tracking effectively detected and visualized the fine‐grained progression of thinking. At the end, we summarize several research and practical implications of the ENA extensions for assessing the learning process. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Assessment and feedback are crucial for cultivating collaborative problem‐solving and critical thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions. Cognitive presence is an important construct describing the progression of thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions. Epistemic network analysis is gaining increasing recognition for modelling the temporal characteristics of online inquiries. What this paper adds Directional connections between discourses can reflect different online discussion strategies of groups and individuals. A pair of connected discourses coded with the community of inquiry model can have different meanings depending on their temporal order. A trajectory tracking approach can uncover the fine‐grained progression of thinking in online inquiry‐based discussions. Implications for practice and/or policy Besides the occurrences of individual discourses, examining the meanings of directional co‐occurrences of discourses in online discussions is worthwhile. Groups and individuals can employ different discussion strategies and follow diverse paths to thought development. Developmental assessment is crucial for understanding how participants achieve specific outcomes and providing adaptive feedback.