Distributed Teaching Presence and Participants’ Activity Profiles: a theoretical approach to the structural analysis of Asynchronous Learning Networks 1 CÉSAR COLL, ANNA ENGEL & ALFONSO BUSTOS Introduction The rapid spread of learning networks based on asynchronous written commu- nication — Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALNs) 2 —, especially in higher education, compels the in-depth study of the possibilities offered by these new environments as spaces for learning, the required conditions for their onset, the forms that they can take and their impact on learning processes and outcomes. In the last two decades, many articles have explored these issues. However, the different disciplinary approaches that converge in this field of study have caused a considerable heterogeneity of topics of study, focus of interest, and theoretical and methodological approaches, complicating the comparison of the obtained results and preventing solid and widely shared conclusions from being reached (Dillenbourg, 1999; Häkkinen, Järvelä & Mäkitalo, 2003; Lipponen, 2002; Strijbos & Fischer, 2007). Hence, many researchers call for more attention to be given to the methodological issues and defend the use of research methods and tools that are in line with a process-oriented approach in order to have a deeper understanding of online environments and their effects on group interaction, group performance, and learning (Stahl, Koschmann & Suthers, 2006; Gress et al., in press). Undoubtedly, the studies of the educational practices in ALNs pose important theoretical and methodological challenges because ALNs are extremely complex environments with varying processes and phenomena. This variation is the result of the interrelation between the cognitive, social, affective and relational aspects of the participants (students’ and teachers’ knowledge, experience, beliefs, moti- vations and expectations) and the characteristics of the teaching and learning situations (content, objectives, activities, technological resources, materials, socio- institutional and socio-cultural context). This complexity calls for the selection of factors and processes in the ALNs that can be considered relevant for research and studies. The selective analysis adopted by the empirical research on ALNs is determined by the researchers’ objectives and their vision of teaching and learning processes. Researchers’ theoretical options imply, in turn, decisions about proce- dures for data collection and analysis. At present, there is a growing number of approaches to the study of ALNs that analyse the content of participants’ com- municative exchanges: interaction analysis, conversational analysis, discourse analysis and, above all, content analysis (deWever et al., 2006). Other approaches European Journal of Education,Vol. 44, No. 4, 2009, Part I © 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.