Online discussion forums are common features in many educational settings. Whether in face-to-face classrooms, in hybrid settings, or in fully online courses, students typically are required to post discussions about course content and are sometimes instructed to comment or reply to one another's discussion posts. The purpose of this study was to better understand the relationships between students' commenting activities and motivation to learn. Specifically, this study examined the relationship between the quantity and perceived quality of students' online comments and the following motivational factors: sense of relatedness, perceived competence, interest–enjoyment, and value–usefulness. Participants for this study were seventy 12th-grade students enrolled in three intact sections of an AP English and Composition class taught at a private high school in the Western United States. The discussion posts and comments were composed on http://youthvoices.net. This study found that while the quantity of comments received was related to two motivational factors, the quality of the comments received was related to all four motivational factors measured. Furthermore, the findings presented here identify the traits of comments that students found most valuable. Results from this study may help inform efforts to guide instructors interested in better structuring discussions in online learning communities that enhance students' motivation to learn.
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