There's a lot more to the topic of online peer-to-peer student interaction than is offered in this post, but it does serve as a useful cautionary note. Miriam Bowers-Abbott points to three studies showing that students perceived peer-to-peer interaction is correlated with their satisfaction in the course (her italics). By contrast, a more recent study comparing two groups, one with interaction and one without, found that interaction did not increase satisfaction (though group projects elevated student achievement). We shouldn't conclude anything, really, from these studies. The flaws in the first three studies are evidence, but the fourth is also flawed, since you can't really control for student interaction, not in a world of email, messaging, and social media. And you can't draw conclusions from just one study. But yeah. We should interpret our studies cautiously, and not jump to easy conclusions about student interaction.
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