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Social Presence in an Online Course

Statement of the Problem

Excellence in teaching involves building community in the classroom

We have experienced a rapid increase in courses delivered entirely online

How do we develop community in online courses?

What kind of Educational Community Do We Want?

Chickering and Gamson (1987) established the “seven principles for good practive”:

• Contact between students and faculty• Cooperation among students• Active learning• Prompt feedback• Time on task• High expectations• Respect for diverse talents and ways of learning

What Kind of Educational Community Do We Want?

The National Survey on Student Engagement (NSSE) found student behaviors contributing to excellence in education:

• Contributing to class discussion• Making class presentations • Participating in community-based projects• Working harder than they thought they could• Critical thinking skills (Kuh, 2002)

How Do We Study the Feeling of Community?

A search of the literature uncovered social presence theory, from the field of communication in education

Purpose of Social Presence

The purpose is to understand social presence in an online course and:

1. To examine students’ perceptions of social presence in both online and face-to-face sections of a senior seminar

2. To understand which elements of an online course are most effective for facilitating social presence

3. To examine social presence as expressed through a discussion forum in the online section

Theoretical Background

Teacher Immediacy BehaviorFrom the field of communication education

comes the concept of teach immediacy behavior, based on Mehrabian and Wiener’s early work in psychology (1968).

Immediacy can be defined as the amount of “perceived physical and/or psychological closeness between people”

Social Presence

Immediacy behaviors gave rise to the concept of social presence, from social psychology (Short, Williams, and Christie, 1976).

Social presence is “the degree to which a person is perceived as a ‘real person’ in mediated communication” (Gunawardenda, 1995, p.151). The more salient the other person in the interaction, the higher the degree of social presence. Immediacy increases social presence (Gunawardena, 1995).

Social Presence

Studies of social presence and computer mediated communication have shown that “despite the low social bandwidth of the medium, users of computer networks are able to project their identities whether ‘real’ or ‘pseudo,’ feel the presence of others online, and create communities with commonly agreed on conventions and norms…” (Gunawardena, 1995).

Her own study found that students in computer mediated conferences were able to “create social presence by projecting their identities and building online communities” (Bunawardena, 1995, p.163).

To Increase Social Presence in Online Classes

1. Mandatory participation in discussion forum2. Weekly papers synthesizing readings, with

prompt and detailed feedback from the instructor

3. Group PowerPoint presentations4. Prompt email responses from instructor to

student difficulties5. Use of conservational style in communications

from instructor to students – use of names discussions of personal context, use of emoticons

Interactive

1. Quoting from others’ messages

2. Referring explicitly to others’ messages

3. Asking questions

4. Complimenting, expressing appreciation

5. Expressing agreement

Social Presence

How can you increase social presence within your classroom?

Please post a response to this question in the discussion forum.