Knowledge Sharing Motivations, Perceived Enjoyment, and Anchoring Effects on Perceived Usefulness of Asynchronous Online Discussions

In this document we examine the effects of knowledge sharing motivations in terms of reputation and expected relationships, perceived enjoyment, and anchoring on perceived usefulness of asynchronous online discussions. Our main aim for conducting this study is to develop a deeper understanding of the dynamics of students’ interactions in online discussions. This study provides added insights to help explain students’ motivations for their participation in the online discussions. A more effective implementation and use of asynchronous online discussions can aid our efforts towards making improvements in a problematic process related to students’ poor performance. In previous years, students exhibited low interest, effort, enthusiasm, and engagement, which contributed to their poor performance in a business statistics course. We employed asynchronous online discussions to increase the interaction and engagement of the student. We also examined the effect of anchoring in the online discussion on students’ exam performance. We propose two research models that help explain the dynamics and effects on perceived usefulness and exam performance. We found sufficient evidence to support the research hypotheses.