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Creating and Maintaining Social Presence Via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring the Self-Rated Behaviors That Lead to Social Presence

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Creating and Maintaining Social Presence Via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring the Self-Rated Behaviors That Lead to Social Presence University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2013 Creating and Maintaining Social Presence via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring the Self-Rated Behaviors that Lead to Social Presence Scott A. Christen University of Tennessee, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Interpersonal and Small Group Communication Commons Recommended Citation Christen, Scott A., "Creating and Maintaining Social Presence via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring the Self-Rated Behaviors that Lead to Social Presence. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2013. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2564 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Scott A. Christen entitled "Creating and Maintaining Social Presence via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring the Self-Rated Behaviors that Lead to Social Presence." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Communication. Michelle T. Violanti, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Lisa T. Fall, Virginia W. Kupritz, Jennifer A. Morrow Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Creating and Maintaining Social Presence via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring the Self-Rated Behaviors that Lead to Social Presence A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Scott A. Christen December 2013 Copyright © 2013 by Scott Christen All rights reserved ii Acknowledgments The first person I must acknowledge is my loving wife. The both of us have blood, sweat, and tears in this dissertation. I cannot thank you enough. I love you and I know you will smile when you read this, because it means the past five years of stress and lack of sleep is over and we can now start living our lives! The second person I must thank is Dr. Violanti. I would not have been able to accomplish this without your guidance and support. You are a mentor in every sense of the word. You have not only guided me on this path, I know that the lessons you have taught me will help me succeed in the crazy world of academe. You have been a friend to me when I needed one, a task master when I need it, and you have fought battles for me. I am a better teacher and mentor because of you. Thank you for everything, you go above and beyond what is expected of you. I must also thank my committee. Dr. Morrow, you have been a friend and showed me by example what an academic should strive for in academe. Your advice has always helped me. You have invited me into your home and provided me with a curious and active kitten that is driving me, Nikki, and our other cat absolutely crazy. In all seriousness, you lead by example and for that I thank you. Lisa Fall, you have also been a friend and mentor to me. You invited me to help with your research, which provided me with the honor of being published several times. You have always been one to provide support and to lighten my mood when I needed it. I thank you for all that you have done for me. However the next conference me, you, and Stephanie attend, were taking a cab to dinner. I still have blisters from the 4.7 mile hike down the Florida turnpike! iii Dr. Kupritz, you are a great teacher and mentor. Your class in organizational communication was one of my favorite classes. I still have nightmares from climbing tower, but I thank you for the opportunity to challenge myself. Last but not least, I must also thank my academic compatriot Stephanie. On the first day that the cohort met, I was intimidated and nervous about academia. I actually told my wife that “I was the dumbest person in the room”, and you were the one the scared me the most. You were the only other communication studies student in the program and you have a mathematics background and worked as biomedical mathematician. However, you have always been there to encourage me when I needed it. Although you graduated before me, you have still supported me through this process. I thank you! iv Abstract This dissertation involved the creation and validation of a new measure of social presence. The first study involved the use of focus groups to create items for the future measure. The focus groups were presented with a set of items that were created based upon past literature; an through discussion of these items, a preliminary measure was created. The second study gathers data concerning the measure that was created from study one and an exploratory factor analysis was performed to eliminate items that did not work well with each other. This reduced the measure from 54 items to 23. The third study involved gathered data to perform a confirmatory factor analysis on the reduced measure from study two to 20 items. The confirmatory factor analysis, also provide construct validity for the measure. The end result of this dissertation is a valid and reliable measure of social presence that can be used to determine if a person has difficulty projecting him or herself as a real individual who is willing to interact with other online communicators. Keywords: social presence, computer-mediated communication, online learning v Table of Contents CHAPTER 1: SOCIAL PRESENCE .............................................................................................. 1 Rationale...................................................................................................................................... 7 Research Purpose ........................................................................................................................ 9 Concurrent Validity ............................................................................................................... 10 Convergent Validity .............................................................................................................. 12 Discriminant Validity ............................................................................................................ 12 CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ................................................................................ 14 FtF Communication and CMC .................................................................................................. 14 Theoretical Approaches to CMC............................................................................................... 17 Media Richness Theory ......................................................................................................... 17 Channel Expansion Theory ................................................................................................... 20 Social Information Processing Theory .................................................................................. 22 Hyperpersonal Communication ............................................................................................. 23 CMC Competency Model ...................................................................................................... 25 Social Presence Theory ......................................................................................................... 28 Presence ..................................................................................................................................... 30 CHAPTER 3: FOCUS GROUPS.................................................................................................. 32 Participants ................................................................................................................................ 32 Procedures ................................................................................................................................. 33 Results ....................................................................................................................................... 35 Affective Items .......................................................................................................................... 35 Interactive Items .................................................................................................................... 36 Cohesion Items ...................................................................................................................... 37 Final Scale ............................................................................................................................. 37 CHAPTER 4: EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS ............................................................ 39 Participants ................................................................................................................................ 39 Procedures ................................................................................................................................. 40 Results ......................................................................................................................................
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