Assessing social construction of knowledge online: A critique of the interaction analysis model

• Research on knowledge construction in emergent technologies is still very limited.
• The Interaction Analysis Model (IAM) is the most adopted analysis model.
• Results suggest low evidence of knowledge construction, with a few exceptions.
• Future directions point at the need to combine different approaches to interaction analysis.

The growing adoption of communication technologies to mediate teaching and learning processes fostered the study of asynchronous communication as an activity that can reveal students’ behavior during learning processes. Much of the research conducted on this topic focuses on the application of interaction models to analyze the content of asynchronous discussions and assess their quality. Despite the existence of different models, the one developed by Gunawardena, Lowe, and Anderson (1997) remains as one of the most used in the study of online interaction. In this respect, the present work focuses on studies that mention the application of this model in its analysis and discusses the extension of its application as well as its limitations. Results reinforce the adequacy of the model to analyze knowledge construction in different types of communication tools, but they also suggest the need to look at how learning is orchestrated and the importance of re-defining some aspects of the model in question.