Scholarly Networking Among Business Students: Structured Discussion Board Activity and Academic Outcomes

Abstract

The authors’ intent was to show the effect of student discussion board activity on academic outcomes, after accounting for past academic performance. Data were collected from 516 students enrolled in a junior-level required business course. Controlling for students’ grade point average, stepwise regression showed a significant relationship between scholarly discussion board usage and both group and individual grades. Students who read the discussion board improved their final grade. More importantly, those students who posted to the discussion board showed further improvement in their academic performance. The findings strongly support the critical notion that when discussion board activity is structured, scholarly networking leads to better student performance. This should encourage more faculty to incorporate task-oriented online discussion in their courses.

Keywords:

• academic performance
• discussion boards
• scholarly networking
• student interaction