Online questions that are used in discussions that take place over the Internet have to be worded in just the right way, or they will not be appropriate for the students - and misunderstandings could occur. In other words, communicating online through discussion questions is not the same as communicating in a regular classroom where clarification can take place quite easily (Moody, 2004). Because of that, best practices indicate that any discussion questions that are created for online use should be more simplistic than questions that might be asked in the classroom. If one starts out small and simple with the discussion questions, it is easier to avoid misunderstandings. At that point, once the question has been asked and answered, the instructor can move on to asking follow-up questions, because a strong basis for understanding would have already been established (Addison, 2000). By creating follow up questions, an online faculty member would be able to assess how much the students were learning. With distance education, that assessment is very important because there are only a few different ways to assess understanding. Since educators and their students...

Any one of those issues could pose a problem for the students, and if the instructor does not ask about those issues in a timely manner they could plague a student or even a group of students until the next test, when the problems would become obvious. Discussion questions that are too complicated will not translate well online, but when the questions are very simplistic, follow up questions must be a large part of the discussion. Otherwise, too much will be lost and the instructor will not be able to adequately assess how well the students have learned.
References

Addison, J. (2000). Outsourcing Education, Managing Knowledge, and Strengthening Academic Communities. In Werry & Mowbray Online Communities: Commerce Community Action, and the Virtual University (175-194). New York: Prentice Hall.

Moody, J. (2004). Distance education: Why are the attrition rates so high? The Quarterly Review of Distance…