12029s

12029s

Student Presentation (20 minutes)

Hery The, University Of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, hery@hawaii.edu
 * Applying Delta Theory to analyze online communities**

Delta theory explains how influence causes the change in others (Tharp, 2011). Delta theory was developed through a synthesis and integration of Tharp works and studies in the setting of many cultures in which the theoretical frameworks were used for research in psychology, sociology, anthropology, evolution theory, philosophy, psychoneurology, cognitive science and cultural-historical-activity theory. In order to simplify the understanding of how Delta Theory works in the society, Tharp used Psychosocial Systems to explain the influence and change. In Chapter 8 of his book, Tharp (2011) showed dioramas of influence and change. He divided two purposes of influence, benign and malign. Some examples of the benign-purpose of influence are primary socialization among the Nso and Navajo “Sings”. The examples he described for malign-purpose influence are military training and recruitment and socialization of underage prostitutes. Recently, there are at least 8 means of influence. These means of influence are task structuring, propping/nudging, modeling, contingency management, instructing, questioning, cognitive structuring, and feeding back against a standard.

Delta theory applied particularly well to analyze the physical community, where people meet and have any kinds of activity through in person meeting. Recently, with the Internet, there are many possibilities to develop online communities. Large numbers of these online communities have been evolved into communities of practice as well as communities of learning. The purpose of this presentation is to analyze how Delta Theory can be applied as well to online communities by using a qualitative approach called self-study. I choose two online communities to be the sites for this analysis. The first community is WizIQ online learning, and the second one is the Second Life. Concepts under Delta Theory that will be used for the analysis are roles of agent-medium-subject, means of influence, triadic model, and purpose of influence. The self-study approach guided me to analyze contents of my courses syllabus, my personal learning activities, and my personal involvement on these two communities.

Results showed that influence and change happened in the online community have some similarities with the influence and change in the non-online community. However, the way influence and change works can be distinguished by the representation of virtual environment of the online communities versus physical space of the traditional communities. In some activities, online community needs support from the traditional community to strengthen the effectiveness of influence and change. At the aggregative level, virtual spaces functioned to be psychosocial system for interaction happened in the online community. In the micro level, it is noticeable that frequently influence and change on SL followed the triadic model. On the other hand, in WizIQ, the influence and change followed the dyadic model.

Delta theory is new and under develops. However, the framework used to develop this theory is not new. It has been founded applied in many fields, such as psychology, sociology, communication, and cognitive science. This presentation will inform participants with a theoretical framework that can become an alternative to study the influence and change.

All Audiences Delta Theory, influence, change, online community, virtual world