Exploring Nontraditional Undergraduates' Resistance to Active Learning in an Online Support Forum in Calculus

This research paper explores the behaviors of an interdisciplinary group of nontraditional science, engineering, education, and mathematics undergraduates who were required to participate in an online support forum for graded credit in first-year calculus. Student resistance is often highlighted as one of the least explored and, perhaps, least understood of all instructional roadblocks to active learning. Efforts to understand resistant behaviors may be complicated by context and viewpoint; students may view their own behaviors, perceived as “resistant” by instructors, differently. Moreover, the rationales and behaviors of students who resist asynchronous, technology-based active learning strategies (e.g., web-based discussion forums) may diverge from those of students who are asked to participate in active learning exercises within a physical classroom. In this study, researchers gathered mixed methods data related to student participation in an online support forum during sequential course offerings of Calculus I and II. Using a concurrent, embedded, mixed methods research design, the researchers gathered several forms of quantitative and qualitative data: text-based forum posts and posting statistics, student survey responses, and one-on-one student interviews. Researchers conducted an exploratory thematic analysis of the combined dataset to understand how students resisted participation in the forum. Results describe student behaviors related to participation and resistance in the online support forum. Several factors were shown to affect student resistance including instructor activity in the forum, forum response times, technological barriers to participation, and the participation grading scheme. Implications for instructors seeking to employ asynchronous active learning with nontraditional students using currently available online forums are provided.