Characterizing response quantity on academic social Q&A sites: a multidiscipline comparison of linguistic characteristics of questions

Abstract

PurposeAs academic social Q&A networking websites become more popular, scholars are increasingly using them to meet their information needs by asking academic questions. However, compared with other types of social media, scholars are less active on these sites, resulting in a lower response quantity for some questions. This paper explores the factors that help explain how to ask questions that generate more responses and examines the impact of different disciplines on response quantity.Design/methodology/approachThe study examines 1,968 questions in five disciplines on the academic social Q&A platform ResearchGate Q&A and explores how the linguistic characteristics of these questions affect the number of responses. It uses a range of methods to statistically analyze the relationship between these linguistic characteristics and the number of responses, and conducts comparisons between disciplines.FindingsThe findings indicate that some linguistic characteristics, such as sadness, positive emotion and second-person pronouns, have a positive effect on response quantity; conversely, a high level of function words and first-person pronouns has a negative effect. However, the impacts of these linguistic characteristics vary across disciplines.Originality/valueThis study provides support for academic social Q&A platforms to assist scholars in asking richer questions that are likely to generate more answers across disciplines, thereby promoting improved academic communication among scholars.

Editorial: Special selections on contemporary social media and social network research

“…sociology, folklore, politics and anthropology. Li et al (2023) analyzed the linguistic characteristics of the academic social Q&A platforms in ResearchGate. They show that such platforms can assist scholars in having improved scholarly communications.…”

“…Wide-spread and high-quality online information services have provided alternative sources during the lockdown (Ding et al , 2021; Hsieh et al , 2023; Lo and Chiu, 2015; Lo et al , 2015, 2017; Suen et al , 2020; Dong et al , 2021; Sun et al , 2022; Wang et al , 2016; Wong and Chiu, 2023; Fan and Liu, 2022; Zuo et al , 2023; Cheng et al , 2022; Cheng, 2022; Wang et al , 2022; Wong et al , 2023) and people have further changed their information and learning habits to digital, particularly for the newer generation (Chan et al , 2022; Chan et al , 2020; Dai and Chiu, 2023; Guo et al , 2022; Shahzad and Khan, 2022; Soroya and Faiola, 2023; Sung and Chiu, 2022; Yi and Chiu, 2023; Wai et al , 2018; Wong and Chiu, 2023; Yu et al , 2022; Zhang et al , 2021). Moreover, the pandemic has accelerated service transformation (Chan et al , 2022; Cheng et al , 2022; Chin and Chiu, 2023; Khan and Ayesha, 2022; Khan et al , 2022; Li et al , 2023; Li et al , 2023; Lin et al , 2022; Lo et al ., 2020; Noh, 2022; Nwagwu and Matobako, 2022; Tseng and Chiu, 2022; Tse et al , 2022; Yao et al , 2023; Wong and Chiu, 2023; Wu et al , 2022b, 2023; Xue et al , 2023), especially supported by ubiquitous mobile Internet services, social media, apps and devices (Dukic et al , 2015; Ezeamuzie et al , 2022; Fan et al , 2020; Fung et al , 2016; Gong et al , 2017; Hui et al , 2023; Lau et al , 2017, 2020; Law et al , 2019; Ni et al , 2022; Yip et al , 2021).…”

“…Information organizations, such as libraries and museums, have gradually adopted social media to maintain a social presence for building social capital besides being widely adopted for promotion and learning aids (Chung et al , 2020; Fong et al , 2020; Ho et al , 2018; Nabi et al , 2023; Lam et al , 2019; 2023; Lei et al , 2021; Leung et al , 2023; Liu et al , 2023a, b; Li et al ., 2023; Lo et al , 2014; Jiang et al ., 2023; Mak et al , 2022; Xie, Chiu, and Ho, 2023; Xie et al , 2023a, b; Wong et al , 2023; Wang et al , 2021; Yang et al , 2022; Wójcik, 2022a; Wu and Yang, 2022), especially during the COVID-19 outbreak. Particularly, digitalization technology enables libraries to share links and content on social media to attract users (Banshal et al , 2022; Lo et al , 2019; Ocran and Afful-Arthur, 2022; Wu et al , 2022a; Xu and Du, 2022).…”

Guest editorial: Contemporary learning behaviors on mobile devices and social media

“…Readers may also be interested in recent research on design-maker communities of practice (Zhang and Hu, 2022), MOOCs continuance intention and dropout (Cheng, 2022; Wang et al , 2023b), social media information creditability and sharing issues (Khan et al , 2022; Li et al , 2023a; Ye and Ho, 2022; Yuan and Bi, 2023; Zhang et al , 2022, 2023b) and the use of social media for promotion (Liao et al , 2022; Lu et al , 2023; Wójcik, 2022a; Wu and Yang, 2022).…”

A Study of Factors Influencing the Volume of Responses to Posts in Physician Online Community

“…By analyzing COVID-19 tweets, one study found that topics with negative emotional polarity attracted more replies and favorites than positive tweets [36]. In academic social networking sites, questions containing linguistic features such as sadness, positive emotions, and second-person pronouns have a positive effect on response volume [37]. And in online cancer support groups, messages with highly positive emotions were less likely to receive responses [38].…”