**1. Introduction**

Education at a distance is becoming increasingly *interactive* with the ever sophisticated advances in web technology and therefore, interactive learning supported by the technology becomes a more significant field than ever, raising lots of critical issues in research and practice. Interaction-based e-learning may host many modes of communication, such as threaded discussion forums, chat, email, wiki-based boards, etc. Most of the research persists positive effects of interaction and present various strategies to improve the interaction for better learning [1, 2].

Although much of the research emphasizes the effectiveness of interaction and strategies to make the interaction more active and effective in an e-learning environment, why and how

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the interaction or strategies are effective has not yet been studied enough. There are some conceptual and theoretical articles on knowledge-building [3, 4]. However, there is a lack of theoretical research on a knowledge-building process based on empirical implementation. To find out more effective instructional strategies in interactive distance learning, we need to first understand how the knowledge-building process works in interaction-based e-learning1 .

Knowledge-building is said to be differentiated from *learning* [3, 5]. In [3], "Learning is an internal, unobservable process that results in changes of belief, attitude, or skill. Knowledgebuilding, by contrast, results in the creation or modification of public knowledge"(p. 1371). [3] also described that "knowledge-building environments enable ideas to get out into the world and onto a path of continual improvement in a form that allows them to be discussed, interconnected, revised, and superseded"(p. 1372). It focuses more on building knowledge-inthe-world as opposed to knowledge-in-the-head. To understand how the process mechanism is going and to find out better instructional strategy in interaction-based e-learning, the observable knowledge-building process rather than the internal learning process would be more useful. Also, the knowledge-building process should be more clearly disclosed in an interaction-based learning environment with active social communication, rather than resource-based instruction for basically individual learning.

The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to articulate a knowledge-building process in interaction-based e-learning. This research is concerned with how individuals and groups build their knowledge and construct meaning in interaction-based e-learning. This research also considers learning outputs, such as cognitive achievement or satisfaction levels, for better comprehensive understanding of the knowledge-building process.

This research will focus on a process-oriented approach; such an approach is focused on '*where* it makes a difference' rather than '*whether* it makes a difference'. Many other studies that utilize a learning *product-oriented* approach—such as comparative studies of learning results with the application of certain strategies—showed various differences on their effec‐ tiveness. However, it is said to be no significant difference by meta-analysis of each research result [6]. This 'no significant difference phenomena' indicates that research needs to shift from finding differences to reasoning the cause of differences. This research focuses more on *process* than product, and presents a more meaningful contribution in the theory and practice of interactive e-learning.
