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An Examination of Social Presence in an Online Learning Environment View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Louisville University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 8-2006 An examination of social presence in an online learning environment. Susan J. Crim University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Crim, Susan J., "An examination of social presence in an online learning environment." (2006). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 291. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/291 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AN EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL PRESENCE IN AN ONLINE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT By Susan J. Crim B.S., East Tennessee State University, 1974 M.S., University of Tennessee, 1985 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Education, Leadership and Human Resource Development University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky August, 2006 ©Copyright 2006 by Susan J. Crim All rights reserved AN EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL PRESENCE IN AN ONLINE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT By Susan J. Crim B.S., East Tennessee State University, 1974 M.S., University of Tennessee, 1985 A Dissertation Approved on May 25, 2006 by the following Dissertation Committee: ___________________________________ Dissertation Director ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ____________________________________ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have realized this accomplishment without the invaluable support and encouragement of a number of people-mentors, colleagues, and family. First, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my dissertation advisor and mentor, Dr. Thomas G. Reio, Jr., for his guidance, patience, sense of humor, and steady assurance, throughout, not only this process, but my entire program of study. He is a strong role model of a true professional whose trenchant scholarship strives to contribute to the field of human resource education. His positive attitude and dedication to students makes the learning experience a truly memorable one. Dr. Reio guided me through this process with his unwavering interest in my study and his untiring encouragement. From him I learned to become a true scholar; both as a critical thinker and a researcher. I would also like to thank the other committee members, Dr. Joe Petrosko, Dr. Mike Boyle, Dr. Carolyn Rude-Parkins, and Dr. Randall Wells for their comments and valuable assistance in the completion of my dissertation research. In addition, I would also like to express my appreciation and gratitude to the Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning and particularly, Joni Allison, whose assistance and expertise made the instrument development and data collection possible. I also owe thanks to the distance education online students who volunteered to participate in the surveys. It is their contributions that need to be recognized if this study provides any significance to the field. iii Most importantly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude, appreciation, and love to my husband and best friend, Gary Crim, for his constant understanding, patience, unconditional love, and valuable support throughout this process when there did not seem to be a light at the end of anything and the world would seem to close in. His strong belief in me and his constant encouragement have been invaluable. Also, my appreciation is extended to the members of my family, friends and colleagues who continually encouraged and supported me in achieving this goal. My gratitude can never be fully expressed of how much you helped to hearten me and promote my efforts. I feel truly blessed to have each of you in my life and I am pleased to share this accomplishment with you. iv ABSTRACT AN EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL PRESENCE IN AN ONLINE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT Susan J. Crim May 25, 2006 The distance education literature is lacking studies investigating the construct of social presence, the value placed on it by online learners, and whether its existence in text-based environments is necessary for learning, satisfaction, and contributing to course retention. The purpose of this study was to explore learner perceptions and experiences of the learning process within the Web-based online learning medium in terms of social presence. More specifically, it examines the relationship among learners’ perceptions of social presence in asynchronous online courses and how it relates to satisfaction with learning, whether course activities perceived as having high levels of social presence also have high levels of satisfaction and quality of learning, and whether perceptions of social presence and satisfaction with learning affects their likelihood of enrolling in future online courses. The research design of this study utilized an online survey administered to 280 students enrolled in online courses of nine disciplines; both undergraduate- and graduate- level at a large urban university. Open-ended questions from the online survey were examined as well to help inform and support the findings from the quantitative data. Data were analyzed using correlations, ANOVAs, and hierarchical regression analysis. v The findings demonstrated that students’ perceived social presence was statistically, significantly, and positively related to their overall perceived satisfaction with learning in online courses. Furthermore, students’ perceived social presence was statistically, significantly, and positively related to their perception of quality of and satisfaction with learning for each of the five course activities examined in this study. The hierarchical regression analysis suggested that perceived social presence contributed substantially more incremental variance to the decision to enroll again in an online course than the satisfaction with learning variable. Overall, the theoretical model including social presence and satisfaction with learning explained 18 percent of the variance in the dependent variable. The potential implications for theory and practice for online course designers and instructors are provided. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS....................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT............................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES..................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................ 1 Problem Statement.................................................................................................. 15 Purpose of Study..................................................................................................... 16 Research Questions................................................................................................. 17 Significance of the Study........................................................................................ 19 II. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................... 23 Overview of Online Learning................................................................................. 23 Importance of Interaction........................................................................................ 31 Social Presence ....................................................................................................... 39 Communication Cues of Interaction, Immediacy and Intimacy......................... 46 Relationship between Social Presence and Communication Cues..................... 52 Community of Learners ..................................................................................... 53 Socio-cultural and Constructivist Theory ............................................................... 57 Importance of Perceptions ...................................................................................... 60 Implications of Social Presence for Online Learning ............................................. 63 Summary................................................................................................................. 68 III. METHODOLOGY .......................................................................... 70 Research Design and Selection of Participants....................................................... 71 Internet Survey Research........................................................................................ 75 Advantages and Disadvantages........................................................................... 76 Instrumentation....................................................................................................... 81 Data Collection ....................................................................................................... 94 Data Analysis.....................................................................................................
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