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.     

A social network as information: The effect of system generated reports of connectedness on credibility on Twitter

Social media have gained increased usage rapidly for a variety of reasons. News and information is one such reason. The current study examines how system-generated cues available in social media impact perceptions of a source’s credibility. Participants were asked to view one of six mock Twitter.com pages that varied both the number of followers and the ratio between followers and follows on the page and report their perceived source credibility. Data indicate that curvilinear effects for number of followers exist, such that having too many or too few connections results in lower judgments of expertise and trustworthiness. Having a narrow gap between the number of followers and follows also led to increased judgments of competence. Implications of these findings are discussed, along with limitations of the current study and directions for future research.     

Five facets of social presence in online distance education

Social presence in online learning environments refers to the degree to which a learner feels personally connected with other students and the instructor in an online learning community. Based on a 19 item Online Social Presence Questionnaire (OSPQ) given to college students in two different online learning courses, a series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses consistently revealed five factors representing facets of social presence in online learning environments: social respect (e.g. receiving timely responses), social sharing (e.g., sharing information or expressing beliefs), open mind (e.g., expressing agreement or receiving positive feedback), social identity (e.g., being called by name), and intimacy (e.g., sharing personal experiences). Together, the five factors accounted for 58% of the variance and were based on 19 items. Although much previous research focuses on cognitive aspects of learning in online environments, understanding the role of the learner’s sense of presence may be particularly important in distance learning situations in which students and the instructor are physically separated.     

Defining sociability and social presence in Social TV

Social TV, a new interactive television service, has been rapidly developing. With the conceptual model of sociability, this study empirically investigates the effects of perceived sociability on the motivations and attitudes toward Social TV. A model is created to validate the relationship of perceived sociality to social presence, usability, and intention. Empirical findings show the key influence of sociability on users’ acceptance and intent to continue using Social TV. Implications of the findings are discussed in terms of building a theory of sociability and providing practical insights into developing a meaningful sociable TV interface.     

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.     

Cues in computer-mediated communication: A corpus analysis

An analysis of five contemporary corpora examines the use of several different cues in four channels of computer-mediated communication. With an in-depth corpus analysis, we show that a wealth of cues is available in online communication, and that these cues are often matched with words that have particular functions and/or semantic meanings. Using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count text analysis software (Pennebaker et al., 2007), we found the two largest categories represented by cue-laden words involved affect and cognitive mechanisms, suggesting that cues are largely used to indicate emotion or to disambiguate a message. We argue that learning the meaning of these cues is central to learning how people communicate nonverbally while online.     

Structural reproduction of social networks in computer-mediated communication forums

This study explores the relationship between the structure of an existing social network and the structure of an emergent discussion-board network in an undergraduate university class. Thirty-one students were issued with laptop computers that remained in their possession for the duration of the semester. While using these machines, participants' email log files were collected directly from the University's email servers. The analysis compared structural attributes of actors evident in their social network with the emergent structural properties measured from interactions in a shared discussion board environment. A significant relationship was found between the existing social network structure and the emergent communication patterns, suggesting that existing relationships have a strong influence on subsequent computer-mediated communication. Additional matrices were used to control for gender, major and perceived computer efficacy, none of which had a significant effect.     

The role of social presence in learner-centered communicative language learning using synchronous computer-mediated communication: Experimental study

This study aimed to clarify the relationship between media, learners’ perception of social presence, and output in communicative learning using synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). In this study, we developed four types of SCMC: videoconferencing (image and voice), audioconferencing (voice but no image), text chat with image (image but no voice), and plain text chat (no image and no voice). Each system allows learners to be conscious of and utter a target formulaic expression. I investigated the effect of each system on psychological perception and productive output as well as the relationship between perception and output. The results show that image and voice promote consciousness of natural communication and relief, while a text-mediated system enhances confidence in grammatical accuracy. In order to clarify the relationship between media, affective side, and output, path analysis was conducted using SPSS Amos 7.0. The results indicated that voice communication strongly affects both learners’ affective side and output. The existence of a partner’s image enhances the consciousness of natural communication, which leads to a number of self-corrections, an aspect of learning performance. However, voice communication has a negative effect on confidence in grammatical accuracy.     

The effects of video on cognitive load and social presence in multimedia-learning

Two studies examined the use of video in multimedia learning environments. In Study 1, participants (N = 26) viewed one of two versions of a computer-based multimedia presentation: video, which included a video of a lecture with synchronized slides, or no video, which included the slides but only an audio narration of the lecture. Learning, cognitive load and social presence were assessed, but a significant difference was found only for cognitive load, with video experiencing greater cognitive load, t (24) = 2.45, p < .05. In Study 2, students (N = 25) were randomly assigned to either video or no video condition. Background knowledge and visual/verbal learning preference were assessed before viewing the presentation, and learning, cognitive load, and social presence were assessed after viewing. No significant differences were found for learning or social presence. However, a significant visual/verbal learning preference by condition interaction was found for cognitive load, F (1,21) = 4.51, p < .05: low visual-preference students experienced greater cognitive load in the video condition, while high visual-preference students experienced greater cognitive load in the no video condition.     

Effects of gendered character representation on person perception and informational social influence in computer-mediated communication

Two experiments examined (a) if the gender of a randomly assigned character would affect individuals' inferences about an anonymous partner in computer-mediated communication (CMC) and (b) how the gender inference would moderate informational social influence. In Experiment 1, participants played a trivia game on a gender-biased topic (sports vs. fashion) with their ostensible partner via computer, represented by a gender-marked cartoon character. The results showed that both men and women, despite the arbitrary nature of character assignment, categorized the partner according to the character's gender. However, the effects of the gender inference on conformity were moderated by the topic and the participant's gender. First, when the topic matched the participant's gender, there was no character effect. Second, whereas women used “expertise heuristics”, exhibiting greater conformity to the male-charactered than female-charactered partner on a masculine topic, men displayed greater conformity to the male-charactered than female-charactered partner on a feminine topic, suggesting male resistance to female influence. Using a gender-neutral topic, Experiment 2 confirmed the explanations. Although the character triggered gender-stereotypical perception of the partner, when the gender was not diagnostic of expertise, the character's gender did not affect women's conformity behavior while men nonetheless showed greater conformity to the male-charactered partner.     

Investigating factors affecting social presence and user satisfaction with Mobile Instant Messaging

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that influence social presence and user satisfaction with Mobile Instant Messaging (mIM). The proposed research model integrates channel expansion, social influence, social presence and media richness theories, to explain how user experience, social influence, and medium richness influence social presence and user satisfaction with mIM. A total of 239 students from a state university in the US participated in this study. Data was collected via a web-based survey. The results suggest that user experience, social influence, and perceived richness are important drivers for social presence and user satisfaction in mIM. The implications of the study findings are discussed in the paper.     

Choosing Buddy Icons that look like me or represent my personality: Using Buddy Icons for social presence

People choose aspects of the self to present that they believe will lead others to have positive impressions of them. The diffusion of telecommunication technologies has led to some of this self-presentation being done using Instant Messaging and other social media applications and devices. When people use Instant Messaging, they select graphical representations to represent them called Buddy Icons. This project asks users to describe the Buddy Icons they are currently using and what they intend to self-present in selecting them to test the extent to which self presentation theory can explain the choices people are making. Overall, participants reported that they felt their Buddy Icons accurately reflected physical characteristics, psychological aspects of the self, or both, which is consistent with previous research that people are relatively honest in their self-presentation online. Those who selected more human like (anthropomorphic) Buddy Icons reported them as more representative of the physical, as opposed to the psychological, self. Finally, users who felt their Buddy Icon accurately represented them reported a stronger sense of identification and felt their Buddy Icon could increase social presence. Implications of these results for online self presentation and impression management are discussed.     

Learning presence as a moderator in the community of inquiry model

This study of over 2000 US college students examines the Community of Inquiry framework (CoI) in its capacity to describe and explain differences in learning outcomes in hybrid and fully online learning environments. We hypothesize that the CoI model's theoretical constructs of presence reflect educational effectiveness in a variety of environments, and that online learner self-regulation, a construct that we label “learning presence” moderates relationships of the other components within the CoI model. Consistent with previous research (e.g., Means, Toyama, Murphy, Bakia, & Jones, 2009; Shea & Bidjerano, 2011) we found evidence that students in online and blended courses rank the modalities differently with regard to quality of teaching, social, and cognitive presence. Differences in help seeking behavior, an important component of self-regulated learning, were found as well. In addition, results suggest teaching presence and social presence have a differential effect on cognitive presence, depending upon learner's online self-regulatory cognitions and behaviors, i.e. their learning presence. These results also suggest a compensation effect in which greater self-regulation is required to attain cognitive presence in the absence of sufficient teaching and social presence. Recommendations for future research and practice are included.     

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.     

Information sharing on social media sites

This study reports on an exploratory survey conducted to investigate the use of social media technologies for sharing information. This paper explores the issue of credibility of the information shared in the context of computer-mediated communication. Four categories of information were explored: sensitive, sensational, political and casual information, across five popular social media technologies: social networking sites, micro-blogging sites, wikis, online forums, and online blogs. One hundred and fourteen active users of social media technologies participated in the study. The exploratory analysis conducted in this study revealed that information producers use different cues to indicate credibility of the information they share on different social media sites. Organizations can leverage findings from this study to improve targeted engagement with their customers. The operationalization of how information credibility is codified by information producers contributes to knowledge in social media research.     

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.     

Increasing social presence of social actors in e-learning environments: Effects of dynamic and static emoticons on children

The present research aimed to employ dynamic and static emotions as social cues in e-learning environments for computers to be able to convey social presence and increase children’s motivation with learning. To understand how children of different gender react to the two types of emoticon in e-learning environment, a math problem-solving practice program was designed to test their reactions. The program features two treatments, dynamic emoticons and static emoticons. A 2 × 2 (emoticon style × gender) between-subjects factorial design was adopted for this study. One hundred seventy-three sixth graders participated in this study. Data were collected via questionnaire regarding the perceived social presence and children’s intrinsic motivation, and then analyzed by means of two-way ANOVA. The results show that the children in dynamic-emoticon condition perceived a higher degree of social presence and reported greater intrinsic motivation than those in static-emoticon condition. The feelings of social presence created by the computer itself can mediate children’s intrinsic motivation. Besides, no gender differences in children’s attitudes toward computers were observed. It suggests that the use of dynamic emoticons as social cues incorporating in e-learning environments can enable children to perceive computers on social dimension and lead to increase their motivation with learning.     

Access,utility, imperfection: The impact of videoconferencing on perceptions of social presence

The intent of the research study was to identify relationships between the use of videoconferencing in meetings and what perceptions of social presence may exist related to age, gender, and usage compared to face-to-face meetings. Employees from a large Midwestern University Information Technology division who utilize videoconferencing to facilitate meetings as an alternative to face-to-face meetings were surveyed to assess experiences, perceptions, and satisfaction. Female and male employees (N = 157), ranging in age from 18 to over 50 years of age, provided the frequency of usage, and responded to questions related to perceptions of social presence. Quantitative analysis of the resulting data supported the hypothesis that one of the independent variables, gender, had a positive impact on perceptions of social presence. Brief interviews further elucidated the quantitative findings. While videoconferencing seems to have drawbacks, accessibility, flexibility, and utility are important aspects that are clear from participants’ perceptions of videoconferencing.     

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.