Social Presence in Online Learning

Multiple Perspectives on Practice and Research

Aimee L. Whiteside, Amy Garrett Dikkers, Karen Swan

• Publisher: Stylus Publishing
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN:
  9781620365113
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Higher Education

Published in Association with 2020 AECT Division of Distance Learning Book Award Social presence continues to emerge as a key factor for successful online and blended learning experiences. It is commonly described as the degree to which online participants feel connected to one another. Understanding social presence—with its critical connections to community-building, retention, and learning outcomes—allows faculty and instructional designers to better support and engage students. This volume, Social Presence in Online Learning, addresses the evolution of social presence with three distinct perspectives, outlines the relevant research, and focuses on practical strategies that can immediately impact the teaching and learning experience. These strategies include creating connections to build community, applying content to authentic situations, integrating a careful mix of tools and media, leveraging reflective and interactive opportunities, providing early and continuous feedback, designing with assessment in mind, and encouraging change in small increments. Because student satisfaction and motivation plays a key role in retention rates and because increased social presence often leads to enriched learning experiences, it is advantageous to mindfully integrate social presence into learning environments. Social Presence in Online Learning brings together eminent scholars in the field to distinguish among three different perspectives of social presence and to address how these viewpoints immediately inform practice. This important volume: •Provides an overview of the evolution of social presence, key findings from social presence research, and practical strategies that can improve the online and blended learning experience
•Differentiates three distinct perspectives on social presence and explains the ideas and models that inform these perspectives
•Explores specific ways in which social presence relates to course satisfaction, retention, and outcomes
•Offers practical implications and ready-to-use techniques that are applicable to multiple disciplines
•Introduces current research on social presence by prominent researchers in the field with direct inferences to the practice of online and blended learning
•Looks at future directions for social presence Social Presence in Online Learning is appropriate for practitioners, researchers and academics involved in any level of online learning program design, course design, instruction, support, and leadership as well as for graduate students studying educational technology, technology-enhanced learning, and online and blended learning. It brings together multiple perspectives on social presence from the most influential scholars in the field to help shape the future of online and blended learning.

PART ONE

Introduction to Social Presence in Online Learning

1

MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING

An Introduction to This Volume

Karen Swan

The theory of social presence is perhaps the most popular construct used to describe and understand how people socially interact in online learning environments. However, despite its intuitive appeal, researchers and practitioners alike often define and conceptualize this popular construct differently. In fact, it is often hard to distinguish between whether someone is talking about social interaction, immediacy, intimacy, emotion, and/or connectedness when they talk about social presence.

—Patrick Lowenthal (2010, p. 254)

The past decades have seen continuous growth in online learning. In the fall of 2014, 2.85 million students took all of their courses at a distance, and 2.97 million took some of their courses in this manner, while the number of students not taking any online courses continues to drop (Allen, Seaman, Poulin, & Straut, 2016). Although these numbers do not include massive open online courses (MOOCs) but rather include the online equivalents of traditional courses offered by accredited colleges and universities, online education of the more traditional variety still presents many challenges. Not the least of these challenges is that many online instructors feel disconnected from their students, and many online students feel disconnected from their classmates and instructors (Kim, Liu, & Bonk, 2005; Kruger-Ross & Waters, 2013), and this perceived separation leads to disengagement and loss of learning. The antidote to this issue is the development of social presence in online classes.

The concept of social presence was introduced by Short, Williams, and Christie (1976). The authors were interested in how people could establish immediacy (Wiener & Mehrabian, 1968) and intimacy (Argyle & Dean, 1965) through various technologies with considerations for learning. Intimacy and immediacy are factors shown to enhance learning in face-to-face classrooms, although Short and colleagues were more concerned with task-oriented business communications. They defined social presence as the “salience of the other” in such mediated environments and attempted to classify communications media according to their ability to convey the subtle visual and vocal cues through which personal relationships are developed in face-to-face settings (Short et al., 1976, p. 224). They placed communication media on a continuum ranging from high social presence (two-way video) to low social presence (computer-mediated communication) and moreover suggested that computer-mediated communication was a poor medium for transmitting social presence.

As time progressed and technologies advanced, educators using online discussions in their courses found that student perceptions of social presence varied among participants in the same mediated conversations and that many participants perceived online discourse to be more personal than traditional classroom discussion (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Walther, 1994). Just as earlier researchers used social presence to explain why online communication was inherently impersonal, these researchers redeveloped the notion to explain how online discussion could be very personal and social. They thus argued that social presence was as much a matter of individual perceptions as an objective quality of the medium. Working within this frame, researchers have linked social presence to retention in courses and programs (Boston et al., 2010; see also chapter 8 in this volume), student satisfaction (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Swan & Shih, 2005), and perceived and actual learning in online classes (Joksimovic, Gasevic, Kovanovic, Riecke, & Hatala, 2015; Picciano, 2002; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Rockinson-Szapkiw, Wendt, Wighting, & Nisbet, 2016; Swan, Day, Bogle, & Matthews, 2014). They also have accordingly explored ways of enhancing the development of social presence in online courses (Akcaoglu & Lee, 2016; Lowenthal & Dunlap, 2010; Richardson et al., 2012; Rogers & Lea, 2005; see also chapters 4, 5, 10, and 11 in this volume).

In this vein, many educators have addressed the importance of making instructors and students aware of the significance of the development of social presence in the online learning process (Garrett Dikkers, Whiteside, & Lewis, 2013; Garrison, 2016; Swan & Shih, 2005; Vaughan, Cleveland-Innes, & Garrison, 2013). Two of the editors of this book made the significance central to their understanding of social presence. In Aimee L. Whiteside’s (2015) Social Presence Model, social presence is seen as the unifying component that synchronizes interactions among the instructor, students, academic content, media, tools, instructional strategies, and outcomes within an online learning experience. Whiteside and Garrett Dikkers (2016) contended that social presence functions as critical literacy for online learners and instructors in that it “engenders a new language of teaching and learning” (p. 238; see also chapters 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 in this volume). The authors also emphasized connectedness and community as part of the social presence construct.

Though the concept of social presence is central to our understanding of online learning (Benbunan-Fich, Hiltz, & Harasim, 2005; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000; Vrasidas & Glass, 2002), researchers in the field are still unable to pinpoint a central definition and continue to define and redefine social presence. Such definitions range on a continuum from Short and colleagues’ (1976) “salience of the other” (p. 224) and Gunawardena’s (1995) perceptions of others as “real people” (p. 151) to Garrison and colleagues’ (2000) ability of participants to project themselves “socially and emotionally” (p. 94); Tu and McIsaac’s (2002) “feeling, perception, and reaction of being connected” (p. 140); and Picciano’s (2002) “sense of being in and belonging in a course” (p. 22). Garrison (2016) incorporated all these definitions into “the ability of participants to identify with a group, communicate openly in a trusting environment, and develop personal and affective relationships progressively by way of projecting their individual personalities” (p. 79).

The premise of this book is that one way to make sense out of this variation in definitions, for practitioners and researchers, is to consider the point of view taken by particular scholars. The book’s parts carefully distinguish three differing perspectives—social presence as technologically facilitated, social presence as learners’ perceptions, and social presence as a critical literacy—and bring together online learning scholars to provide examples of how these differing viewpoints can inform research and practice. This chapter introduces the book’s parts and chapters.

In chapter 2, “Social Presence: Understanding Connections Among Definitions, Theory, Measurements, and Practice,” Amy Garrett Dikkers, Aimee L. Whiteside, and Bethany Tap continue the introduction by providing a brief overview of the various definitions, guiding theoretical frameworks, and instruments designed to measure social presence, as well as the instructional strategies through which the former are transferred into the practice within the online classroom.

In chapter 3, “Understanding Social Presence as Technologically Facilitated: Introduction to Part Two,” Karen Swan introduces Part Two and the chapters within it. As originally coined by Short and colleagues (1976), social presence was seen as a quality of communications media. Communications scholars saw computer-mediated communication as a particularly poor medium for transmitting social presence. Although only a minority of educators hold such a view today, there are quite a few educators exploring the use of differing technologies to enhance social presence in online environments. Although they mostly link social presence to participant perceptions, these scholars see it as, in some sense, technologically facilitated. Chapters in this section share that perspective.

In chapter 4, “Social Presence and Communication Technologies: Tales of Trial and Error,” Patrick Lowenthal and Dave Mulder explore the background of the relationship between social presence and technology. They provide an extensive review of research adopting a “social presence as technologically facilitated” lens and the instructional strategies associated with it. In particular, they survey research and practice involving social presence and emerging technologies, including synchronous video, asynchronous video, digital storytelling, social networking, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as low-tech options, such as pictures and messaging. They conclude with well-considered general recommendations for using technology to enhance social presence.

In chapter 5, “Evolvements of Social Presence in Open and Networked Learning Environments,” Chih-Hsiung Tu argues that the concept of social presence must evolve with emerging technologies. In particular, this chapter addresses the role of social presence in the open education and open educational resources movements. The author interestingly links social presence to social identity, self-presentation, and self-actualization and discusses how these factors manifest in personal learning environments and open networked learning environments. Tu concludes with an argument for the importance of social presence in lifelong learning.

In chapter 6, “Understanding Social Presence as Learners’ Perceptions: Introduction to Part Three” Karen Swan introduces Part Three of this volume and the chapters within it. In the late 1990s when educators started using online discussions in their classes, they found that most of their students believed they “knew” each other. They, thus, argued that social presence was not a quality of a medium but rather a function of the perceptions of those communicating through it. The chapters in this section share this perspective on social presence.

Probably the most famous instantiation of the concept of social presence is as one of the three presences that make up the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. Chapter 7, “Social Presence and the Community of Inquiry Framework” by Karen Swan and Jennifer C. Richardson, explores how the concept of social presence has evolved within CoI research and how CoI scholarship has contributed to our understanding of that concept. In particular, it discusses measures developed to investigate both the ways in which online students project their presence in online discussion and participants’ perceptions of social presence. Findings from CoI research and their practical implications are also summarized.

In chapter 8, “Social Presence and Student Success: Retention, Satisfaction, and Evolving Expectations,” Phil Ice, Melissa Layne, and Wally Boston report on important findings from two very large investigations using the CoI survey of the effects of teaching, social, and cognitive presences on student retention in online programs. Findings from both studies, done three years apart, revealed that just two affective social presence items accounted for almost all of the variance in retention linked to CoI presences. The findings suggest that social presence is a critical factor in student retention. Drawing from an analysis of open-ended responses on the survey, the authors conclude with suggestions for using the features of traditional learning management systems to support the development of social presence.

In chapter 9, “Instructor Social Presence: Learners’ Needs and a Neglected Component of the Community of Inquiry Framework,” Jennifer C. Richardson and Patrick Lowenthal argue that there is an effective instructor behind every successful online course and that the social presence of instructors is a critical element in positive online educational experiences. In this chapter, Richardson and Lowenthal define instructor social presence, explain its importance, highlight its role in the CoI framework, and summarize research they and other experts have conducted on instructor social presence. Of particular interest in this chapter are the authors’ reflections on establishing instructor social presence in courses designed by other experts. The chapter concludes with additional implications for practice.

In chapter 10, “Creating Social Cues Through Self-Disclosures, Stories, and Paralanguage: The Importance of Modeling High Social Presence Behaviors in Online Courses,” Jessica Gordon presents a brief history of the CoI framework, addresses social presence research, and uses accumulated findings to argue that online instructors must model and support the development of social presence in their online classes. In particular, she focuses on understanding teacher immediacy behaviors and translating them to verbal immediacy behaviors for online environments. Using examples from her own teaching experiences, Gordon provides a variety of useful ways to enhance social presence in virtual classes.

Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena, the author of chapter 11, “Cultural Perspectives on Social Presence: Research and Practical Guidelines for Online Design,” is to social presence research what Grace Hopper is to computer programming. Gunawardena was the first to view social presence in terms of learners’ perceptions and to develop ways of measuring it and its effects on learner satisfaction and perceived learning. In this chapter, she reviews the steps leading to her findings and how in that process she became aware of cultural differences in the perception of social presence. Gunawardena argues for broadening our understanding of the concept as online learning expands globally, and she concludes the chapter with practical guidelines for designing online courses to support the development of social presence with culture in mind.

Chapter 12, “U...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• copyright
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Series Foreword
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Part One: Introduction to Social Presence in Online Learning
• Part Two: Understanding Social Presence as Technologically Facilitated
• Part Three: Understanding Social Presence as Learners’ Perceptions
• Part Four: Understanding Social Presence as a Critical Literacy
• Part Five: Concluding Thoughts
• Editors and Contributors
• Index
• Also available from Stylus
• Backcover