الفهرس 
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Abstract
This chapter provides a summary of the study. In addition, it offers a
number of recommendations and suggestions for further research which
the researcher has generated with regard to the current body of literature
and the status of Online Threaded Discussion (OTD) program during the
research.
5.1 Summary
There is an urgent need to address students’ unsatisfactory performance
in persuasive writing and critical thinking using a non-traditional approach
(i.e. OTD).
Therefore, this study was designed to determine the effectiveness of
OTD in developing persuasive writing and critical thinking skills of MBA
and DBA students at Faculty of Business – Ain Shams University. The
addressed research questions were:
1- What are the required EFL persuasive writing skills for MBA and
DBA students?
2- What are the required EFL critical thinking skills for MBA and DBA
students?
3- What are the features of designing a program using Online Threaded
Discussion, Fishbowl Discussion Strategy and Blended Learning to
develop EFL persuasive writing and critical thinking skills for MBA
and DBA students?
4- How far is this program effective in developing persuasive writing and
critical thinking skills of MBA and DBA students?
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The hypotheses which the present study attempted to verify were:
1- “There are statistically significant differences at 0.05 level between the
mean scores of the three experimental groups in the postadministration of the persuasive writing test as a whole.”
2- “There are statistically significant differences at 0.05 level between the
mean scores of the three experimental groups in the sub-skills of the
persuasive writing test in the post-administration.”
3- “There are statistically significant differences at 0.05 level between the
mean scores of the three experimental groups in the postadministration of the critical thinking test as a whole.”
4- “There are statistically significant differences at 0.05 level between
the mean scores of the three experimental groups in the sub-skills of
the critical thinking test in the post-administration.”
5- ”The program has an effect on participants’ satisfaction in the three
experimental groups.”
The participants of the current study were 30 MBA and DBA students.
They were enrolled in El Sewedy Electric Group. They were already
divided into three groups of equal number. They were assigned to three
experimental groups. In order to verify the hypotheses of this study, a
program based on discussion styles was designed by the researcher and
was applied on the three experimental groups.
It is expected that this study would have significance for the following
categories:
1. Educational Institutions:
It is expected that educational institutions would benefit from this study
due to the free operational cost of the Moodle Application compared to
other costly applications or educational platforms.
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2. MBA and DBA Students:
This category would benefit the most from the study by enhancing their
Persuasive Writing and Critical Thinking through the implementation of
Online Threaded Discussion which shifts education from being teachercentered to student-centered and where students’ learning becomes the
focus of attention.
The instruments used in order to carry out the experiment of this study
were:
1- A pre-post test to measure the students’ writing skills.
2- A pre-post test to measure the students’ critical thinking skills.
5.2 Findings
Several findings could be derived from the findings of this study. It was
noted that MBA and DBA students’ persuasive writing skills were
unsatisfactory. The main reasons for such weakness are due to the
programs provided for them. They feel the real gap between what they
study and the real practice. Thus, there should be integration between
theory and practice. More emphasis should be dedicated to students’
experiences at work that can be fertilized material for learning process.
This makes students feel that they contribute to their learning and makes
them active participants. In short, it is recommended to consider the
results of this study when dealing with persuasive writing skills and
critical thinking skills for MBA and DBA students.
In addition, the students under study did consider the use of an online
discussion board to be a positive change in instruction and believed they
gained a deeper understanding of the topic due to the online discussion
board. Students worked collaboratively in order to conduct research prior
to posting on the discussion board, therefore, it can be assumed that
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students were more focused and motivated because they split the work
load with their peers and had the opportunity to discuss the topics with
their classmates prior to posting.
Therefore, it is recommended that students work collaboratively to
conduct research while reading about the topic to be discussed. This gives
students the opportunity to have casual conversations about the topic prior
to posting to the online forum. Likewise, students will most likely feel
more comfortable with the topic and their own ideas after hearing
feedback from a classmate, which will make them more confident when
posting to the online discussion board.
In the future, the researcher plans to use student responses to the online
discussion to generate new questions and present new ideas in order to
encourage more classroom conversation. In other words, in the future, the
researcher will build on students’ comments from the discussion board to
generate new, deeper questions to discuss together in class. The idea is
that students will be more willing and interested in discussing the new
questions in class because they already have a foundation of knowledge
from the online discussion. However, they will be responding to new
thoughts and ideas on the topic rather than simply repeating their posted
comments.
5.3 Limitations of the study
1- The period of applying the working OTD program was short. It was
only three months. If it was longer than that, it would be better.
2- There were other topics that might enhance students’ experience but
the researcher did not use. They are: Decision Making and Problem
Solving, Entrepreneurial Business Strategy, Managing Conflicts,
Intellectual Property.
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3- The findings cannot be generalized due to the small number of the
participants.
5.4 Recommendations
In the light of the present study results, the following recommendations
are made:
Persuasive writing skills should be enhanced through the integration
with critical thinking skills. Persuasive writing has the ability to develop
many sorts of thinking, for instance, analytical, deductive and critical
thinking.
Using OTD which helps learners to translate their experiences into a
form of a series of linked messages organized topically. All students
have a voice in threaded discussion and no one can dominate the
conversation.
The present program can be adopted for teaching persuasive writing and
critical thinking to students at university stage, for instance, Faculty of
Pharmacy.
It is recommended that technology should be used at the university
stage parallel with face-to-face interaction.
Future research could investigate the effect of cognitive style to student
learning outcomes in both structured and authentic assessments.
Additionally, effect of cognitive style on the number of posts, type of
posts, and satisfaction in online courses could be studied.
Another research needs to continue to assess student learning outcomes
and student perceptions of learning outcomes. Both the actual learning
outcomes and perceptions are critical to gaining a better understanding
of the potential of online threaded discussion.
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Investigating the effect of using online threaded discussion board in
different ways could be explored. The discussion board could be
designed in a variety ways to achieve specific learning outcomes. A
content analysis or “discourse analysis” could be performed on the
discussion posts themselves to investigate whether the design of the
online threaded discussion board achieved the specific outcomes. The
analysis could be structured to reflect different types of learning, or
discussion board uses including social, technical, or content-oriented.
Finding ways to increase sample sizes would be areas for future
research studies.
There is a need for another research to introduce three independent
measurements that may assist in determining student interaction and
participation: mean reply depth (MRD), mean post length (MPL), and
peer posts accessed (PPA). These measurements, and how they are
calculated, are described in greater detail in the paragraphs below. The
MRD examines a component of student interaction, the MPL considers
how much a student participates in writing, and the PPA looks at how
much a student participates in reading.
5.5 Suggestions for Further Studies
Further research needs to continue to assess student learning outcomes
and student perceptions of these outcomes as they are critical to gaining
a better understanding of the potential of online threaded discussion.
Additional research should be done with a broader sample. This will
allow for greater generalizability to more university students. Broader
generalizability is critical because there is a need to adjust online
learning experiences for university learners to make those experiences
more suited to them.
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Future studies should also include opportunities for qualitative data
collection, as well as quantitative data collection. A mixed methods
approach will provide opportunities for clarification and verification of
findings through triangulation of the data. In order to make valid
statements about achievement, the quantitative aspect of the study could
focus on students’ test scores. The qualitative aspect of the study could
offer opportunities for triangulation through interviews and content
analysis.
Suggestions and recommendations that may enhance participants’
discussion:
The following are suggestions and recommendations that may enhance
participants’ discussion. These suggestions are derived from the
researcher’s experience after applying the Online Threaded Discussion
program. They are as follows:
1- The techniques used by the teacher should emphasize the use of better
hooks to launch the discussion. Generally, discussion starts with a
question but sometimes prompts of that caliber require thoughtful
preparation; they don’t usually pop into minds the moment they are
needed. Thus, a quotation, a short scenario that requires content
application, a hypothetical case or situation, a synopsis of a relevant
current event are relevant techniques that a discussion can be started
with.
2- Using listening as an integral part of instruction. Teachers’ talk is a
primary source of information and language input for English learners.
It not only conveys ideas about the topics being discussed but models
how to use language, serving as the input or data which learners
internalize and use to express their meanings. Moreover, listening
comprehension activities gave participants the opportunity to construct
an idea about the topic being discussed.
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3- Respecting participants’ ideas even if they were somehow irrelevant.
Teachers should not discourage participants while talking.
4- Using topics and discussions related to participants’ interest and up-todate. When choosing materials or themes to use, it is important that
teachers find ones that are appropriate for learners based on their
language proficiency and what is of interest to them. Using ideas that
were relevant to participants’ study helped them to be interested in
participating in the discussions. Besides, the researcher was eager to
tackle the new topics with participants especially in case studies