IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age (CELDA 2005)

DOUBLE-LOOP LEARNING CONVERSATIONS IN AN ONLINE COMMUNITY ON OVERWEIGHT

sa Smedberg
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm university/KTH Forum 100, S-164 40 Kista, Sweden

ABSTRACT The members of online health-communities are growing in number. One type of health-community is the one for people who suffer from overweight, who want to change behavior to lose weight. Learning a new behavior calls for investigating patterns of events, to question the way events are presented, and to create new mental models. This paper presents the results from a study of learning conversations held in an online community on overweight. In the conversations on learning, the most frequently used type of response was the one sympathizing with the ideas and beliefs of the sender, while the least used type of response was the one that rejected the ideas presented by the sender. Furthermore, there were more examples of members who presented counter-ideas in the conversations on obstacles and incentives than in the conversations on personal setbacks. KEYWORDS

Online community, Conversations, Double-loop learning, Setback, Obstacle, Incentive.

1. INTRODUCTION
The last years have brought a new trend to the Internet, the virtual or online communities, used by many people and for different purposes. One example is the online health-communities that are being widely used (Fox S., Fallows, D., 2003). People use them to share experiences and give advice on how to cope with different health conditions (Preece, J., 2000). One type of online health-community is for people who suffer from bad habits such as bad eating or smoking habits, and who need to learn a new behavior. Especially bad eating habits and overweight has become a problem for many people (Timperio A., Crawford D.A., 2004). When learning is concerned, different types can be seen. Learning how to do things is referred to as single-loop learning (Argyris, 1994). When engaging in this type of learning, we are occupied with questions of how to apply rules, and how to correct mistakes as they appear to us. A more profound type of learning is the double-loop learning that aims to question the way a problem appears to us, and to evaluate and change mental models and beliefs. Double-loop learning is necessary when we want to change behavior and avoid mistakes from repeating themselves (Argyris, C., 1994). Double-loop learning in communities calls for the members to help each other to see patterns of behavior and to question each others behavior, values and ideas. At the same time, communities are social phenomena (Preece, J., 2000). There is often a tension between learning in the community and the members need to feel togetherness (Starkey, K, et al., 2004). To be able to help each other to learn, people have to pay attention to each other. They need to ask for additional information, and to adjust advice and support (McDermott, R, 2000). This calls for conversations between people. Conversational acts that are important to address are requests made by the speaker, as well as promises, counter-offers and rejections made by the hearer (Winograd, T., Flores, F, 1998). Studies of online communities have so far mostly been focusing on characteristics of separate messages, whether they are empathic or hostile, for example. This kind of knowledge is valuable to better understand how the online communities work. However, these studies need to be complemented by others in order to reveal the learning abilities of the communities. This paper shows how conversations in an online community can be studied from a learning perspective.

383

ISBN: 972-8924-05-4 2005 IADIS

2. METHOD
The study presented in this paper has been conducted on an overweight community in the Swedish NetDoctor site (netdoktor.passagen.se) during March and April 2005. In order to better understand the online conversations where the participants engage in double-loop learning, conversations of this kind were filtered out from the community. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were done. Issues and responses were classified and counted, and the patterns of conversations were investigated.

3. RESULTS
The total number of conversations in the studied Swedish online community on overweight was 109. The focus of the study was to look at the conversations related to double-loop learning, i.e., conversations about behavioral changes in order to lose weight. Three categories of conversations for this purpose were detected; conversations about personal setbacks, experienced obstacles and incentives for losing weight. The number of conversations that dealt with these issues was 19.

3.1 Categories of Double-Loop Learning Conversations

The first category of conversations was the one with personal setbacks. In this category, there were, for example, community members expressing sadness because they had too much to eat. Some described problems with reaching a certain weight, and some expressed that they even had experienced weight gain despite exercises and great efforts to control food intake. One of the members ended the message by saying that: [...] the last two months have done nothing to my weight. Strange. Anyone who have similar experiences? In another of the setback issues the author explained the problematic situation everytime s/he was offered a cookie. After having one cookie, s/he could not stop but had to have more. The feeling was explained in the following way: [...] so, here I am feeling depressed...ready to try again...but I become disappointed with myself everytime it happens. The second category of conversations was concerned with obstacles. A characteristic of nearly half of these conversations was the presence of anxiety concerning the Eastern holiday and how to continue the weight control with all the food and candy that come with the holiday. Besides the more specific concerns about the Eastern holiday, there was one community member explaining that he or she wanted to run up the wall because of the feeling of hunger, and asked for advice. Another one expressed a constant feeling of hunger, the message went: I am full but the brain is not satisfied. The last category of conversations was the one with conversations on incentives. A couple of these conversations were related to the question about underlying reasons for trying to lose weight. In one of the messages the author doubted whether she was trying to lose weight for her own sake. Another community member expressed a critical thought about the way many people try to reduce weight because of pressure from the environment, and that the society associates a slim body with happiness. Another of the start-up messages was labeled Help! and came from a member who asked for help with motivation. The number of conversations was evenly spread between the three categories with six issues raised about setbacks, seven about obstacles and six on incentives. The levels of responses were seen to be few in most of the conversations. Table 1 below shows the distribution of responses on the first level vs. the second and higher. The setbacks had the least share of responses to responses with only three in total.
Table 1. Double-loop learning conversations, numbers of issues and responses Setbacks Number of issues Total number of responses Number of responses (1st) Number of responses (2nd ) 6 24 21 3 Obstacles 7 83 58 25 Incentives 6 71 54 17 Total 19 178 133 45

384

IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age (CELDA 2005)

3.2 Patterns of Conversations

For each conversation, the responses were classified according to the conversational acts being used. Four types of responses were detected, presented in Table 2 below. Response A refers to those messages where the community members expressed their sympathy with the thoughts, ideas and troubles presented by the sender. This type of response did not include any suggestions or advice. The second category, Response B, contains responses that not only included expressions of sympathy, but also the members own experiences and advice. Furthermore, there were examples of community members who questioned the ideas and experiences of the sender. These members presented a different point of view, counter-ideas and advice. Response C in Table 2 represents these messages. The last type of response, Response D, relates to the community members who were much more explicit in their rejection of the senders ideas and his or her understanding of the situation. These community members rejected intentions, values and beliefs of the sender. As can be seen in Table 2, the most frequently type of response was Response A, while the least used response type was Response D.
Table 2. Occurrences of different types of responses Setbacks Response A: Response B: Response C: Response D: Agreeing with the sender Agreeing and giving advice Opposing and presenting counter-ideas Rejecting ideas or beliefs 15 7 2 0 Obstacles 30 29 20 4 Incentives 25 22 21 3 Total 70 58 43 7

3.2.1 Response A Agreeing with the Sender

In the setback conversations, Response A was illustrated by participants expressing that: It will be better, keep up the good work. Others referred to their own experience: I have had a bad week myself, but I start to see the light again. Regarding Response A and the conversations on incentives, a couple of examples of this kind of response were found in the conversation about underlying motives for losing weight. One of the members wrote: Your issue has really made us think again about why we want to lose weight. Thanks for that.

3.2.2 Response B Agreeing and Giving Advice

Regarding responses of type B, in which also advice from the sender was added, only seven out of 24 responses were instances of this type in the conversations on setbacks. One example of such a response was: I have the same problem [...] and further the member explained that: My advice is that you have porridge, sandwiches, fruit, egg, etc., for breakfast. Another example was the response to the sender who had expressed in the start-up message that h/she did not lose weight despite a lot of exercising and healthy food. The member who replied wrote: Yes, my weight was also constant for a long time [...] and continued with: But when I increased my fat intake the bathroom scale suddenly started to show results. So my advice is that you check whether you eat enough of fat [...] In the conversations on obstacles, one of the members replied: I cannot manage to walk before breakfast either...so I take a walk after my breakfast instead. Regarding the incentives, one of the responses of type B went: I have tried to be on a diet to please other people a lot of times [...] no, if you are going to succeed you MUST do it for your own sake, otherwise it does not work. as a reply to the sender who did not know for sure why she tried to lose weight.

3.2.3 Response C Opposing and Presenting Counter-Ideas

The fourth type of response, Response C, was characterized by the community members declaring an opposing standpoint and presenting counter-ideas. This type of response existed only twice in the conversations on setbacks. One of the responses was addressing the sender who had explained that s/he was feeling depressed because of a weekend with too much to eat. In the response, the member wrote: What is a

385

ISBN: 972-8924-05-4 2005 IADIS

couple of days in a life-time? There is nobody punishing you if you do not manage to lose weight within a certain period of time, is there? In the conversations on obstacles, some examples of Response C were found in the conversation about problems with exercising before breakfast. One of the opposing responses was: I went for a walk before breakfast during a couple of weeks, and that went fine. The first mornings I was quite hungry but after a while my stomach got used to it. One example from the conversations on incentives was: I think that it is up to each one of us to decide what is best. We are all different [...] This response was found in the conversation about societal impact on people and their ongoing struggle to lose weight. Other examples of Response C were found in the conversation about ideal weight, where the members objected to the idea that they needed to decide about and stick to a certain ideal weight, something that was the startingpoint of the conversation.

3.2.4 Response D Rejecting Ideas or Beliefs

The last category of responses was the type D referring to the responses that in a strong way rejected the ideas presented by the sender. There were no such responses found in the conversations about setbacks. In the conversations on obstacles, four responses of this type were present. One example was found in the conversation about candy intake. It was a response to a response, in which the member in an ironic way rejected the idea presented by the sender. Regarding the conversations on incentives, all of the type D responses were found in one conversation, the one concerned with the environmental impact on weight control activities and how people regard their weight. The sender of the start-up message was concerned about unhealthy ideals. One reply included the following harsh words: I do not know what you are doing here. Another member expressed that: Maybe you have ended up in the wrong NetDoctor site, this site is for us who have decided that we need to lose weight.

4. CONCLUSION
The study of the NetDoctor community on overweight showed that there were few examples of conversations that included responses to responses. This was especially evident in the conversations on setbacks. The result can be regarded as troublesome for the purpose of learning, since people gain from asking each other for additional information as well as communicating about events and underlying reasons. More of a two-way interaction would let the participants learn more effectively together. The most frequently used type of response was the one where the community member agreed with the senders idea or problem definition. Least frequent was the response that strongly rejected the ideas of the sender. Furthermore, the responses that opposed and presented counter-ideas were the second least used type of response. From a double-loop learning perspective, the community members would most likely gain from using a better balance between the different types of responses.

REFERENCES
Preece J., 2000. Online Communities Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability, Wiley & Sons, Ltd., England. Starkey K. et al., 2004. How Organizations Learn, Thomson Learning, USA. Winograd, T., Flores, F., 1988. Understanding Computers and Cognition, Addison-Wesley Publishing Comp., USA. Argyris, C., 1994. Good Communication that Blocks Learning, Harvard Business Review, July-August 1994, pp. 77-85 Fox S., Fallows, D., 2003. Internet Health Resources, Pew Internet & American Life Project, July 16 2003. McDermott, R., 2000. Knowing in Community: 10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice, IHRIM Journal, March 2000 Timperio A., Crawford D.A., 2004. Public Definitions of Success in Weight Management, Nutrition & Dietetics, No. 61, pp. 215-220.

386

Copyright of Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on Cognition & Exploratory Learning in Digital Age is the property of International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.