The advancement of digital technologies has transformed the landscape of higher education, offering new modes of teaching and learning that extend beyond traditional classroom settings. Among these innovations are Asynchronous Online Discussions (AODs). In this study, asynchronous online discussions (AODs) refer to threaded online discussions that use audio, text or videos. These discussions promote interaction beyond constraints of time and physical classroom boundaries, therefore providing flexibility; promote active and deep learning among many other benefits. Even with all these benefits, they remain underutilised. It is therefore important to investigate how students participate in AODs in the courses that utilise them.

This study followed a qualitative research approach within the interpretive paradigm and a case study design. A qualitative case study was used because it helps to capture the social, cultural and environmental context that influences behaviours and interactions, which offers a more holistic perspective. Interpretivism was considered an appropriate paradigm because it acknowledges that meanings vary with individual and societal factors. This was a case of one university in Gauteng, South Africa. The focus was courses offered by one department within this university. There were about 15 courses on offer in the academic year 2024. Only courses where AODs were pedagogically used were considered. These would be discussions on a specific topic, not just used for information dissemination. All AODs for the whole academic year in each of the identified courses were downloaded from the LMS and exported into Excel for analysis. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. This involved identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns or themes within data.

It was the finding of this study that AODs are not commonly used in the courses chosen. Their numbers ranged from 0 to 5 AODs for each of the courses for the whole academic year. The study also found that only 13% of the courses had the whole class viewing the AODs while 20% of the courses had 50% or less of students viewing the AODs. It was also found that the number of students viewing the AODs correlated with the rate of responses, meaning the higher the viewers, the higher the response rate percentage. The students' contributions in the AODs were found to be confirmatory and dialogical, with confirmatory contributions more prominent.

It was the conclusion of this study that AODs are underutilised in these courses, have low student engagement, and mostly consist of confirmatory rather than dialogical contributions. The findings suggest a need for more intentional instructional design that embeds AODs meaningfully into courses, particularly to enhance student interaction and reflection.

Keywords: Online Teaching, Online Discussions, Asynchronous Online Discussions.