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An Exploration of Student and Teacher Social Presence in Asynchronous Discussion in an Online Advanced Placement Course for Rural High School Students

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An Exploration of Student and Teacher Social Presence in Asynchronous Discussion in an Online Advanced Placement Course for Rural High School Students View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository AN EXPLORATION OF STUDENT AND TEACHER SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ASYNCHRONOUS DISCUSSION IN AN ONLINE ADVANCED PLACEMENT COURSE FOR RURAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS Claire de la Varre A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Education (Educational Psychology, Measurement and Evaluation). Chapel Hill 2012 Approved by: Jill V. Hamm Jeffrey Greene Wallace Hannum Matthew J. Irvin Judith Meece ABSTRACT CLAIRE DE LA VARRE: An Exploration of Student and Teacher Social Presence in Asynchronous Discussion in an Online Advanced Placement Course for Rural High School Students (Under the direction of Jill Hamm) This study used a social presence construct derived from the Community of Inquiry (COI) framework, with cohesive, affective, and interactive components, to explore online discussion in an Advanced Placement course for rural high school students. The COI is based on the underlying theoretical framework of social constructivism, where interaction is a key component of learning. The study focuses on the contributions of students and online teachers to social presence in online discussion, and explores student dropout through the lens of social presence. Teacher social presence behaviors tended to be cohesive in nature, while students’ social presence behaviors were primarily affective and interactive in nature. The study found that compared to their peers who completed the course, many students who dropped the course were more likely to use sarcasm, complain, or disagree with other students. Each teacher demonstrated unique patterns of social presence behaviors. There were also distinct patterns of student dropout characteristics associated with high social presence and low social presence teachers. ii To my daughters, Zoë and Natalie. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................ viii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ ix Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................1 The Evolution of Distance Education .............................................................5 ODE in K-12 Settings .....................................................................................5 Summary of Research Comparing ODE with Face-to-Face Learning ...........7 Student Dropout in ODE .................................................................................7 Lack of ODE Research at the K-12 Level .....................................................8 Theoretical Framework: Social Constructivism ...........................................10 Purpose of the Study .....................................................................................15 Summary of Chapter One .............................................................................16 II. LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................17 Common Problems in ODE ..........................................................................17 Learning through Interaction ........................................................................20 Characteristics of Asynchronous, Threaded Discussion ...............................23 The Community of Inquiry (COI) Framework .............................................25 Social Presence .............................................................................................27 Social Presence and Community ..................................................................30 iv The Role of the Online Teacher and Teacher Social Presence .....................35 Summary of Chapter Two .............................................................................37 Research Questions .......................................................................................38 III. RESEARCH PROCEDURES AND METHODOLOGY .............................39 Differences between cohorts .........................................................................41 Data Collection and Preparation ...................................................................42 Participant Demographics .......................................................................42 Definition of Enrollment and Dropout ....................................................42 Description of DBs Used in Analysis .....................................................43 Missing Data ...........................................................................................44 Data Analysis ..........................................................................................45 Content Analysis .....................................................................................45 The Importance of Counting ...................................................................47 Measuring Social Presence .....................................................................48 Social Presence Component of the COI Framework ..............................48 Teacher Social Presence .........................................................................50 Rational for Additional Social Presence Codes ......................................51 Interpersonality Taxonomy .....................................................................52 Expanding the Social Presence Model ....................................................53 Coding the data .......................................................................................54 Inter-Coder Reliability ............................................................................55 Coder Training ........................................................................................56 Calculation of Inter-Coder Reliability ....................................................59 v Relevance of the study ..................................................................................62 IV. RESULTS .....................................................................................................63 Measuring Social Presence ...........................................................................64 First Research Question ................................................................................65 Student SPD in the Three Subcategories ................................................69 Examination of Individual Social Presence Codes .................................70 Summary of Findings for the First Research Question ...........................85 Second Research Question ............................................................................85 Patterns of Interaction for Individual Teachers ......................................86 Summary of Findings for the Second Research Question ......................94 Third Research Question...............................................................................95 Overall Four-Week Drop Rate by Teacher .............................................96 Comparing Students who Completed the Course with those who Dropped .........................................................................97 Dropout Characteristics of Students Associated with Different Teachers .................................................................................98 Summary of Findings for the Third Research Question .........................99 V. DISCUSSION .............................................................................................101 Teacher Social Presence Patterns ................................................................101 Activity in Online Discussion .....................................................................104 Social Presence and Student Dropout .........................................................105 Revisiting the Conceptual Framework........................................................109 Implications for Practice .............................................................................111 Implications for Future Research ................................................................115 vi Strengths of the Study .................................................................................116 Limitations of the Study..............................................................................117 Conclusion ..................................................................................................119 APPENDIX A: How I Will Assess Your Discussion Board Work ..............................124 APPENDIX B: Introduction to Threaded Discussions .................................................126 APPENDIX C: List of 18 codes, with sources and descriptions, in the expanded social presence (ESP) model ..............................................................128 APPENDIX D: Positionality Statement........................................................................130 REFERENCES .............................................................................................................132 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Description of discussion boards .............................................................................44 2. Description of codes in the social presence component of the COI framework .............................................................................................49
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