Selective reading of large online forum discussions: The impact of rating visualizations on navigation and learning

As discussions in online forums can become quite large, participants must be highly selective in their reading behavior. Standard, chronological displays of discussions provide little guidance in how to find valuable content. An experimental study tested whether a group awareness tool can support individual navigation and subsequent learning within a forum. 127 participants read through a large online discussion in which contributions were rated on average quality and average agreement. In a 2 x 2 factorial design, posts were visualized along continua indicating average quality ratings (absent vs. present) and/or average agreement ratings (absent vs. present). Results showed that the visualization of discussion contributions led to stronger deviations from a chronological reading order. Moreover, it was found that the presence of a quality dimension shifted readers' focus to high-quality contributions (unipolar navigation). Moreover, the quality dimension was weakly associated with better performance in a knowledge test. In contrast, it was found that the presence of an agreement dimension shifted readers' focus to both high-agreement and low-agreement contributions (bipolar navigation). Moreover, the agreement dimension was associated with stronger attitude change and a higher intention to participate. Implications for the use of group awareness tools in full-scale online forum environments are drawn. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.