Background

mean-ing content in the context of their web-based course assignments.

Data was collected from eight course assignments (N=2 430), from four 15 credit web-based courses in Teacher Education 90 credits, at a Swedish School of Education.

Another central notion discussed in the thesis is voice. Voice shall here be understood as a person’s utterance, including meaning of own and others’ words from different contexts, and expressed from a particular viewpoint or perspective. Argumentation and re-sponding ability are related to the process of assembling and reas-sembling different components of the students’ own and others´

words and meanings, in order to become a more conscious writer.

There is also a need for the students to understand the “ground rules” of argumentation, and to provide response, discuss and ar-gue with one another in a reasonable way. Students’ ability to un-derstand reasonable critical positions is supported by presenting examples of solutions, as well as by disproving arguments (Chin &

Osborne, 2010). In the web-based asynchronous dialogues studied here, the students were given the opportunity both to present their own arguments, and examine the arguments of others.

Critical thinking can be defined as a persistent effort to examine any evidence, or assumptions based on evidence that supports or refutes these assumptions (Curtis & Smith Stevenson, 1998). Ac-cording to Scheuer et al. (2010), students not only need to “learn to argue”, they also need to learn good argumentation practices, through argumentation about specific topics, using peer scaffolding and peer support. In other words, “arguing to learn”, and “re-sponding to learn”, in the sense that practicing argumentation and responding skills supports critical thinking, as well as other impor-tant aspects in learning processes.

The importance of developing reflective and critical arguments and responses, both individually and collectively, has been high-lighted in several studies within the field of distance learning and education (e.g. Vonderwell, 2003; Finegold & Cooke, 2006;

Wegerif, 2006; Swann, 2010). According to other researchers (Meyer, 2003; Schellens & Valcke, 2005; Wegerif, 2007; Richard-son & Ice, 2010), academic education should place value and em-phasis on the processes of argumentation and responses, engaging in collective higher-order and critical thinking, and forms of

reflec-tive interaction that support students’ ability and motivation to co-operate in effective ways. A frequent pedagogical problem in web-based education, discussed by Stahl and Hesse (2008b), and Garri-son and Arbaugh (2007), is that students and teachers mainly focus on the individual learning process. At the same time, insufficient attention is devoted to the curriculum objectives and learning out-comes.

While many models are available for the design of online activi-ties to promote learning, there are considerably fewer dialogic models for the analysis of arguments and responses. Previous re-search points to the tension between teachers´ ambitions to develop collective and dialogic interactive learning environments, and find-ing ways to concentrate participants´ discussions more on course content. Matusov (2007, p. 218) emphasizes that many academic subjects in fact lack a strong discursive community, because the students’ replies are based upon their own opinions, which are of-ten uninformed, and poorly developed. He believes that this situa-tion is shaped by the invisible authority of social tradisitua-tions, as well as voices of the external authority of expert texts or teacher. In other words, the fact that students base their learning on external authority, rather than discussion, means that they lose opportuni-ties to develop well-founded reasoning and critical thinking.

The field of ICT-mediated learning and web-based education is extensively researched. Very different areas and aspects are focused in this research. As an example, research is currently conducted on technical self-regulated learning (SRL) systems with scaffolding support, aiming to develop independent learning skills among stu-dents. Simply learning to use web-based tools and wireless tech-nology module systems is not enough.It is still a challenge to pro-vide an environment conducive for learning. Efforts are also being made to improve accessibility, so that learners can easily access learning materials outdoors, e.g. using instant messengers or surf-ing (for research in this area, see Kuei-Psurf-ing et al., 2010; Shih et al., 2010; Xun et al., 2010).

The classic study by Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994) is often discussed as a source of inspiration for collaborative learning envi-ronments. Other researchers describe web-based learning as a col-laborative process, in which participants negotiate and share

mean-ings within an interactive collective context (Stahl, Koschmann &

Suthers, 2006; Stahl & Hesse, 2007). The asynchronous dialogue thereby becomes a discussion and conversation in which partici-pants are mutually dependent on each other. Those who write and those who read are co-authors, and shareholders in a common ne-gotiation, cooperating to develop a meaning and shared under-standing of certain ideas expressed in literature and theories.

However, other studies, for example Lipponen et al. (2001) and Jakobsson (2006), show that students in these types of learning en-vironments are not always active participants in collaborative knowledge-building communities of the kind described above. In-stead, it is argued that this kind of courses may result in relatively superficial or unreflective re-productions. These studies observe that the teachers tend to focus on organisational and administra-tive tasks, such as scheduling or the construction of individual signments and examinations. Furthermore, teachers implicitly as-sume that participants are interested in discussing, and that they are able to use different arguments as a tool for their own knowl-edge building. Such assumptions may not always be warranted.

Therefore, it is important to investigate more about different ways in which students can use their own and others texts to develop in-dividual and collective learning in distance education.