Video lecture format, student technological efficacy, and social presence in online courses

Online platforms are frequently used as an alternative environment for individuals to meet and engage in a variety of activities, like attending courses online. We examined the effect of adding social presence cues in online video lectures and technological efficacy on college students’ perceived learning, class social presence, and perception that the videos aided learning. Participants rated their technological efficacy and completed an online class with video lectures that either included the video (image) of the instructor or not. The interaction between technological efficacy and video manipulation predicted lower ratings of perceived learning, social presence, and video usefulness, particularly for students with lower technological efficacy. A mediated-moderation analysis showed that, the interaction between person (efficacy) and media (instructor image in video vs. no image) predicted greater perceived learning through the mediators of perceived usefulness of videos, class interactivity, and felt comfort in the class.     

Investigating factors that influence social presence and learning outcomes in distance higher education

There are many factors that influence distance learning especially in higher education where collaborative and communicative discourse is necessary for pursuing knowledge. Social presence, among other factors, is an important concept to be facilitated, developed and sustained in distance higher education as it promotes and supports discourse based learning. This study examines the relationship among demographic and other variables, social presence and learning satisfaction. Results showed demographic variables, such as gender, online learning experience and work status were not significant factors in terms of influencing on either social presence or learning satisfaction. While media integration and instructor’s quality teaching were significant predictors of both social presence and learning satisfaction, interactivity among participants was a predictor of social presence but not of learning satisfaction. Along with the study findings, some implications were discussed for online learning practitioners in higher education setting.     

Explaining social presence and the quality of online learning with the SIPS model

The concept of Social Presence is often cited by researchers trying to understand the mechanisms governing beneficial learning climates and interpersonal connections among online learners. However, convoluted definitions and problematic measurements of social presence have made it difficult to understand how exactly social presence and related social variables come to be, hindering the investigation of reliable design recommendations. This study attempts to advance the SIPS (Sociability, Social Interaction, Social Presence, Social Space) model. It shows how these variables are related to each other and to relevant outcome variables like satisfaction. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to assess the predictive capabilities of the model regarding the outcome variables. Results support the notion that a sociable learning environment fosters social interaction, leading to social presence and the emergence of a sound social space, in turn explaining the quality of the learning experience. Social presence, when measured in a non-convoluted way, has no effect on satisfaction.     

Broadening the understanding of social presence: Implications and contributions to the mediated communication and online education

Social presence is a concept found to facilitate effective learning experiences in online education. However, there is limited understanding of the theoretical notion in the literature. In an attempt to broaden the understanding of social presence, the current investigation examined two issues: a) distinction between social presence and interactivity, and b) multidimensional nature of social presence and its predictive validity for online learning experiences. Data were collected from 210 undergraduate students using an online survey. Findings indicate that social presence and interactivity are related but distinct constructs. Both psychological involvement and co-presence appear to be under the concept of social presence. The data indicate strong predictive validity of social presence for online learning experiences when it is measured with both dimensions of psychological involvement and co-presence.     

Social presence in relation to students' satisfaction and learning in the online environment: A meta-analysis

Social presence, the ability to perceive others in an online environment, has been shown to impact student motivation and participation, actual and perceived learning, course and instructor satisfaction, and retention in online courses; yet very few researchers have attempted to look across contexts, disciplinary areas, or measures of social presence. This meta-analysis allowed us to look across these variables of the primary studies and identify the pattern of student outcomes (e.g., perceived learning and satisfaction) in relation to social presence through scrutiny of differences between the studies. The results showed a moderately large positive average correlation between social presence and satisfaction (r = 0.56, k = 26) and social presence and perceived learning (r = 0.51, k = 26). Large variation among correlations (86.7% for satisfaction and 92.8% for perceived learning, respectively) also indicated systematic differences among these correlations due to online course settings. We found that (a) the strength of the relationship between social presence and satisfaction was moderated by the course length, discipline area, and scale used to measure social presence; and (b) the relationship between social presence and perceived learning was moderated by the course length, discipline area, and target audience of the course. Implications and future research are discussed.     

Applying social learning analytics to message boards in online distance learning: A case study

Social learning analytics introduces tools and methods that help improving the learning process by providing useful information about the actors and their activity in the learning system. This study examines the relation between SNA parameters and student outcomes, between network parameters and global course performance, and it shows how visualizations of social learning analytics can help observing the visible and invisible interactions occurring in online distance education.The findings from our empirical study show that future research should further investigate whether there are conditions under which social network parameters are reliable predictors of academic performance, but also advises against relying exclusively in social network parameters for predictive purposes. The findings also show that data visualization is a useful tool for social learning analytics, and how it may provide additional information about actors and their behaviors for decision making in online distance learning.     

Intragroup status and social presence in online fan groups

Low and high status member posts from online fan message board posts were examined. Low status members, as compared to high status members, were found to use more intimacy and immediacy social presence cues, including: praise for the group, self-disclosure, friendly and positive affective language, first person singular pronouns, and present tense verbs. Low status members were less likely than high status members to use articles, larger words, and discrepancy words. Lastly, low status members were rated as more likeable than high status members. The results suggest that low status members may strategically use social presence cues as a means of ingratiating themselves to the group.     

Community of inquiry as a theoretical framework to foster “epistemic engagement” and “cognitive presence” in online education

In this paper, several recent theoretical conceptions of technology-mediated education are examined and a study of 2159 online learners is presented. The study validates an instrument designed to measure teaching, social, and cognitive presence indicative of a community of learners within the community of inquiry (CoI) framework [Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2, 1–19; Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7–23]. Results indicate that the survey items cohere into interpretable factors that represent the intended constructs. Further it was determined through structural equation modeling that 70% of the variance in the online students’ levels of cognitive presence, a multivariate measure of learning, can be modeled based on their reports of their instructors’ skills in fostering teaching presence and their own abilities to establish a sense of social presence. Additional analysis identifies more details of the relationship between learner understandings of teaching and social presence and its impact on their cognitive presence. Implications for online teaching, policy, and faculty development are discussed.     

Sources and impacts of social influence from online anonymous user reviews

Consumers increasingly rely on online reviews to make purchase decisions. However, the process through which consumers are influenced by online reviews is not well understood. To fill the gap, we apply the social influence theory to theoretically explain and analyze this opinion change process. Specifically, we identify antecedents and consequences of two types of social influence from online user reviews: informational and value-expressive influence. From a survey conducted in a controlled laboratory environment, we found that perceived review quality positively impacts informational influence, while perceived review quality, consistency, and social presence jointly impact value-expressive influence. Interestingly, informational influence impacts both perceived decision quality and perceived usefulness of the website, while value-expressive influence only impacts perceived usefulness of the website. Surprisingly, consumer characteristics, including prior product expertise and self-monitoring, do not have significant effects on the formation of social influence online.     

Social presence,trust, and social commerce purchase intention: An empirical research

Lacking the presence of human and social elements is claimed one major weakness that is hindering the growth of e-commerce. The emergence of social commerce might help ameliorate this situation. Social commerce is a new evolution of e-commerce that combines the commercial and social activities by deploying social technologies into e-commerce sites. Social commerce reintroduces the social aspect of shopping to e-commerce, increasing the degree of social presences in online environment. Drawing upon the social presence theory, this study theorizes the nature of social aspect in online SC marketplace by proposing a set of three social presence variables. These variables are then hypothesized to have positive impacts on trusting beliefs which in turn result in online purchase behaviors. The research model is examined via data collected from a typical e-commerce site in China. Our findings suggest that social presence factors grounded in social technologies contribute significantly to the building of the trustworthy online exchanging relationships. In doing so, this paper confirms the positive role of social aspect in shaping online purchase behaviors, providing a theoretical evidence for the fusion of social and commercial activities. Finally, this paper introduces a new perspective of e-commerce and calls more attention to this new phenomenon of social commerce.     

Examining online teaching,cognitive, and social presence for adult students

Drawing on the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000), this mixed-method case study examined the nature and interactions of teaching, cognitive, and social presence created by online instructors and adult students in diverse course contexts. The study results indicated online instructional design and teaching elements that are crucial prerequisites for a successful online higher educational experience for adult students. The study also informed e-learning designers on the relations between online teaching, cognitive, and social presence.     

Building and maintaining an online academic conference series

This paper explores the enablers and inhibitors of participation in an online academic conference series. Using CybErg as an example of an online academic conference, the lessons and experiences learnt at all three of the previous CybErg conferences and the organisation of the last two of these conferences are shared in this paper. The key challenges to online academic conferencing are identified as the digital divide, language proficiencies, “academic tourism” and the qualities of face-to-face versus computer-mediated communication (as encapsulated in the social presence theory and the media richness theory). The paper concludes with some challenges for future online conferences and remarks on the ongoing role and format of online academic conferences.

Relevance to industry

The lessons learnt in building and maintaining an online conference have a great deal of applicability to understanding how all online communities might be sustained. While some of the issues may appear “unique” to an academic environment (e.g. “academic tourism”), the lessons learnt from CybErg with regard to internationalisation of discussion and the technological challenges faced in different regions of the world has direct relevance to international industries and the efficacy of online conferencing facilities that they use.     

A closer look on social presence as a causing factor in computer-mediated collaboration

So far, research in computer-mediated collaboration has investigated various factors influencing the amount of social presence experienced in online settings. This experimental study broadens the perspective and investigates social presence as a causing factor on participants’ perception on task, medium and collaboration. Therefore an experiment with between subject design was conducted, with manipulation of three different levels of social presence: Full (f2f), medium online and low social presence (each n = 20). Participants had to solve an online puzzle in dyads.Findings mainly confirm a favourable influence of social presence on the perception of task and collaboration. Additionally, this study supports the importance of considering the reciprocal nature of social presence.     

The expression of social presence through the use of figurative language in a web-based learning environment

The present paper’s aim is to investigate how the participants of an online learning environment employed written language in a creative way through the spontaneous use of figurative language. The content analysis showed that figurative language was a means to express the social dimension either to refer to the self, feelings and emotions, or to conceptualize the components of the virtual learning setting. The research context was a 10-week course, delivered at a distance via a computer conferencing system, addressed to 57 student teachers. The analysis was carried out in the social and meta-cognitive reflection areas, those areas which are mainly related to the expression of the social dimension The study had three different purposes: to investigate the distribution of figurative language during the course length; to explore the relation between the participants’ educational background and their use of figurative language, and to examine the relation between figurative language and the structure of the communication threads. The results indicate that participants tended to use figurative language more when meaningful or critical events happened. The higher the emotional involvement was, the more metaphorical language was adopted. Further results suggest that the adoption of figurative language seems to be related more to individual attitude, than to other factors such as educational background. Finally, figurative language occurrences were not concentrated in specific kinds of postings or threads and did not encourage further use of figurative language.     

The role of social media in enhancing guanxi and perceived effectiveness of E-commerce institutional mechanisms in online marketplace

This study extends literature on e-commerce trust and repurchase intentions by exploring the role of swift guanxi and the perceived effectiveness of institutional mechanisms (PEEIM) in the context of a Chinese e-marketplace – Taobao. We explore how Taobao’s social media technologies (online reviews and instant messenger) can improve swift guanxi and PEEIM by increasing online interactivity and presence. We find that buyers’ PEEIM negatively moderates trust in online sellers and repurchase intentions. We show that swift guanxi, created by social media’s interactivity and presence, enhances trust, which further increases repurchase intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Effects of community of inquiry,learning presence and mentor presence on K-12 online learning outcomes

This study extends the community of inquiry (CoI) framework and self-regulated learning (SRL) theory through an exploration of the structural relationships among existing CoI variables, learning presence (i.e., self-efficacy and online SRL strategy) and learning outcomes in the context of K-12 online learning. To help understand the influence of K-12 mentoring – which is unique to online learning in the U.S. – mentor presence is also included. Structural equation modelling of 696 online 8th through 12th graders' survey responses and final grades showed that adding learning presence to the CoI framework helped to explain how these learners translated their online-learning perceptions into cognitive and affective learning outcomes. We also found that mentor presence significantly and positively predicted online SRL strategy, one of the two components of learning presence. Lastly, we established a connection between the CoI model and various types of learning outcomes that are indicators of K-12 online learning success – though it should be noted that important differences existed between a model based on final grades and two other outcome models. It is hoped that the processes identified in this study will be useful and relevant to K-12 online-learning institutions and educators seeking to improve their offering via a wide range of approaches.     

Writing power into online discussion

This article considers the way in which control of interaction emerges as a function of personal agency and external factors in a group of students engaged in online asynchronous text-based communication in a distance education program. It is structured around the argument that control is partly related to the power that individuals have to give effect to their wishes, but also acknowledges that this sense of agency is always in relation to the powers of others and more structural constraints. A picture emerges of the choices students make in deciding when to initiate discussion and respond to others, and about decisions concerning whose messages they would read and when. The impact of other students, of online groups, and instructors seems to play an important role in determining how participants participate in online interaction. Consideration of broader issues shows how the context in which students engage in interaction impacts the nature and extent of that interaction. The article concludes that being aware, and taking advantage of the socially grounded nature of online interaction provides the basis from which educators can act to ensure that interaction in online learning communities is enabling for the learning of all students.