INVESTIGATING AN ONLINE COMMUNITY OF SELF-DIRECTED LANGUAGE LEARNERS AT THE MIXXER Shuya Xu Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education, Indiana University May 2019 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Doctoral Committee _____________________________________ Curtis J. Bonk, Ph.D. _____________________________________ Kyungbin Kwon, Ph.D. _____________________________________ Faridah Pawan, Ph.D. _____________________________________ Walter R. Smith, Ph.D. Date of Defense: December 4, 2018 ii Copyright 2019 Shuya Xu iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Curtis Bonk, a role model for me as a teacher and as an educational scholar, for his guidance, encouragement, and inspiration during my graduate studies and dissertation process. I learned about motivating and creative teaching practices not only from the courses, but also through his demonstration. With the opportunities to practice my skills in Dr. Bonk’s research group projects and my individual studies under his guidance, I grew from a novice doctoral student to an experienced member of the instructional technology scholarly community. Using the many skills and competencies I acquired along the way, I was able to complete this dissertation project that I am passionate about. The detailed edits and feedback that Dr. Bonk provided my academic writing with all the time has been especially beneficial to an international student. I appreciate the expert advice and insightful feedback from my dissertation committee members, Dr. Kyungbin Kwon, Dr. Faridah Pawan, and Dr. Smith, that helped me shape the scope, methods, and results of this dissertation study. I also received valuable help for the statistical analysis procedures from Yu Hu, a senior consultant at the Indiana University Statistical Consulting Center. The Mixxer founder and administrator, Todd Bryant, offered me access to The Mixxer community and utmost support during the data collection process. I would also like to express my gratitude to all participants of my study as well for taking time to share their unique experiences with me. My thanks also belongs to all School of Education professors and fellow students I have worked with. Every course that I have taken and all the collaborative experiences I have engaged in have played an indispensable part in my growth as a future scholar and practitioner in the IST field. My studies were a long journey at Indiana University. I met my smart and loving husband iv in my first year in the IST master’s program and got married to him when I started the Ph.D. studies. Our daughter, Evelyn, was born when I was collecting data for this dissertation. Peng gave me all the support I needed during these eight years, and shared his experiences and thoughts on taking courses, conducting research, and graduating as a Ph.D. student when I was going through the same stages, even though it was in a different field. Both our sets of parents had been extremely supportive, as well. They flew all the way across the sea to the US to take care of our little girl and me so that I had enough time to work on my dissertation. Finally, sweet Evelyn, mom feels so proud and delighted to make progress together with you! v Shuya Xu INVESTIGATING AN ONLINE COMMUNITY OF SELF-DIRECTED LANGUAGE LEARNERS AT THE MIXXER The present study investigated The Mixxer language exchange site (https://www.language-exchanges.org/) as a typical informal online community of self-directed language learners with a focus on how learners interact with each other. Learners’ perception was also studied regarding how their language learning was impacted by their participation in the community. An exploratory sequential mixed methods design was adopted for this work. Data collection started with the iterative feature analysis of The Mixxer website and document analysis of website posts and records, along with an interview with the website administrator. Eight English learners and eight native speakers of English were then interviewed regarding their language learning experiences at The Mixxer after an initial understanding of The Mixxer environment was obtained. Data from interviews with learners were analyzed thematically to inform the development of the survey questionnaire for the last stage of data collection. During the last phase, a survey was distributed to over 12,000 users of The Mixxer. Importantly, more than 500 total responses were received. Of that total, 396 responses were analyzed in SPSS and MS Excel to reveal the interaction patterns and related experiences of all learners at The Mixxer. Analysis results showed that learners conducted conversational language exchange and writing corrections at The Mixxer. The user profile and search system as well as the messaging/chat tool of The Mixxer facilitated the connection of language partners. Learners used Skype or other communication tools to meet with their partners. Meanwhile, a smaller group of learners engaged in writing correction activities in the forum-style Writing section of The vi Mixxer. The Mixxer learners had one to four language partners on average. Among the 71.21% learners who had language exchange experiences at The Mixxer, they typically had one to four 31- to 60-minute exchanges each month. Ordinary learners attempted to arrange equal language practice opportunities for both parties during the exchange. They liked to chat casually with partners, ask each other questions, and teach basic knowledge of the language. They also corrected each other’s mistakes or gave other types of feedback. Some other learners had more structured activities for their language exchange engagement, such as reviewing different types of learning materials together or designing meaningful activities for language practice. Learner’s preferences of language partners were also discussed. Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data with the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework suggested a strong social presence in The Mixxer community with a variety of indicators and examples. Cognitive presence was identified from learners’ regular language input and output practices during the exchange. Teaching presence in The Mixxer community was largely performed by learners themselves in the categories of design and organization and direct instruction. Evidence was also found for learning presence that effectively extended the CoI framework suggested by Shea and Bidjerano (2010, 2012). In addition, an inspection of learners’ perceived impact of their Mixxer experience, reflected many benefits of conducting language exchange in this community, such as the opportunities to practice the language with native speakers, improvement of language skills, and motivation for continued language learning. A series of challenges were also reported by The Mixxer learners, including time-scheduling issues, unstable Internet connections, difficulty in finding a partner, and so forth. Other language learning efforts were also studied for a better vii understanding of the role that participation in The Mixxer community played in learners’ entire language learning endeavors. The interactive relationships between learning context, learners’ self-directed learning (SDL) attributes, and SDL processes were exemplified in the present study. Improvements to Song and Hill’s (2007) SDL model were proposed by incorporating CoI components. _____________________________________ Curtis J. Bonk, Ph.D. _____________________________________ Kyungbin Kwon, Ph.D. _____________________________________ Faridah Pawan, Ph.D. _____________________________________ Walter R. Smith, Ph.D. viii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... iv Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... vi Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ ix CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................ 1 Background of the Study ............................................................................................................................ 2 Purpose of the Study and Research Questions ........................................................................................... 4 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................................................ 5 CHAPTER 2 ................................................................................................................................ 7 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................. 7 Self-Directed Learning ............................................................................................................................... 7 Theories of Learning Community ............................................................................................................ 14