Electronic discussion forums in medical ethics education: the impact of didactic guidelines and netiquette

The quality of computer-mediated asynchronous group discussion in educational settings often has potential for improvement. To this end, 2 categories of recommendations can be found in the literature. Some authors advise providing didactic guidelines to students. Others recommend informing students about the basics of (formal) network etiquette (netiquette). This paper investigates whether the type of guideline provided has an effect on either or both the quality of asynchronous group discussion and the appraisal of participants in the context of a course in medical ethics.

A total of 112 students graduating in the biomedical sciences were randomly assigned to electronic discussion groups of 18-19 participants each. Three treatment groups were created by varying the guidelines presented to participants upon entering the discussion forum. Guidelines contained trivial information, netiquette advice, or a combination of didactic guidelines and netiquette advice.

Both the quality of discussion and the participants' appraisal of the discussion were highest in the third group. However, contrary to what is widely suggested, it was observed that exclusively supplying netiquette guidelines had no impact on discussion quality.

To improve the quality of asynchronous group discussion, it is advisable to provide not only netiquette rules, but also didactic guidelines. Future research should focus on the effects of netiquette guidelines on students of different levels and skills and should allow for disentangling the effects of netiquette and didactic guidelines. It might also seek to establish methods of disseminating guidelines that enhance their effect.