social presence and e-learning

ISBN: 972-8939-00-0 © 2005 IADIS

SOCIAL PRESENCE AND E-LEARNING Karen Swan Research Center for Educational Technology 201 Moulton Hall, Kent State University Kent, OH 44242

ABSTRACT “Social presence” can be defined as the ability of participants in online discussions both to perceive other participants as “real people” and to project themselves socially and affectively into the disussion. This paper explores the concept of social presence and its relationship to learning online, through a review of research studies to date investigating these topics and a summary of their findings. KEYWORDS social presence, online discussion, learning

1. INTRODUCTION Over the past decade, the growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web have had a profound effect on higher education by enabling the phenomenal growth of e-learning. The altered learning environments created by web-based courses not only eliminate barriers of time and space, providing increased access to higher education, they challenge our traditional notions of teaching and learning. A common concern among some educators, for example, is that the mediated nature of online learning might prevent students from developing a sense of the presence of others, which social learning theories (Vygotsky, 1978; Lave & Wenger, 1991) and immediacy research (Weiner & Mehrabian, 1968; Gorham & McCrosky, 1987; Christophel, 1990; Rodriguez, Plax & Kearney, 1996) suggest support learning. Certain communications scholars, indeed, have argued that differing media have different capacities to transmit cues that convey “social presence” and so have questioned the capacity of some media, computer-mediated-communications in particular, to promote learning (Short, Williams & Christie, 1976; Rice, 1992; Picard, 1997). This paper explores the notion of social presence and its relationship to learning online. It begins with a quick look at its roots in research on teacher immediacy behaviors and learning in traditional classrooms, then examines relevant research studies to date that have explored the notion of social presence and its relation to learning in online courses. It concludes with a brief summary of findings across these studies and suggests directions for future research.

2. IMMEDIACY “Immediacy” refers to the perceived “psychological distance between communicators” (Weiner & Mehrabian, 1968). In traditional, face-to-face classrooms, educational researchers found that certain teacher immediacy behaviors, such as making eye-contact, smiling, approaching, and touching students (non-verbal immediacy), and calling students by name and using humor and self-disclosure (verbal immediacy), could lessen the psychological distance between teachers and their students, leading to greater learning. Several models linking immediacy to increased learning in traditional classrooms have been proposed (see Figure 1). Learning models suggest a direct relationship between teachers' immediacy behaviors and increased cognitive (Kelley & Gorham, 1988) and affective (Richmond, Gorham & McCroskey, 1987, Gorham, 1988) learning. Motivation models posit an intervening variable, state motivation, between teacher immediacy

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IADIS Virtual Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems 2005

behaviors and learning. That is, these models contend that such behaviors result in students being more motivated to learn, which in turn leads to increased cognitive and affective learning (Christophel, 1990). The affective learning model of Rodriguez, Plax & Kearney (1996) also posits an intervening variable between immediacy and cognitive learning, but suggests that the intervening variable is affective learning itself. Regardless of the model posited, however, a good deal of research in face-to-face classrooms has demonstrated a significant link between both the non-verbal and verbal immediacy behaviors of teachers and student learning.

LEARNING MODEL IMMEDIACY

COGNITVE LEARNING (Kelly & Gorham, 1998)

AFFECTIVE LEARNING (Richmond, Gorham & McCrosky, 1987)

MOTIVATION MODEL IMMEDIACY

COGNITVE LEARNING STATE MOTIVATION

(Christophel, 1990)

AFFECTIVE LEARNING

AFFECTIVE LEARNING MODEL IMMEDIACY

AFFECTIVE LEARNING

COGNITVE LEARNING

(Rodriguez, Plax & Kearney, 1996) Figure 1. Models of the Relationship Between Teacher Immediacy and Student Learning

3. “SOCIAL PRESENCE” The findings concerning teacher immediacy in traditional classrooms have important implications for elearning. Some communication researchers argue that differing media have differing capabilities to transmit the non-verbal and vocal cues that produce feelings of immediacy in face-to-face communication. Short, Williams & Christie (1976), for example, refer to these media capabilities as “social presence,” or the “quality of a medium to project the salience of others in interpersonal communication.” They contend that media with few affective communication channels (such as text-based computer-mediated communication) have less social presence(and by extension promote less learning) than media with a greater number of affective communication channels. Media richness theory (Rice, 1992) and Picard’s (1997) work on “affective channel capacity” reach similar conclusions.Educators experienced with e-learning, however, contest this view, noting what Walther (1994) refers to as the "hyperpersonalness" of the medium, and relates individual success or failure in online courses to the extent to which students were able to “cross a threshold from feeling like outsiders to feeling like insiders” (Wegerif, 1998, p 34). E-learning researchers have shown not only that participants in computer-mediated courses experience feeling of immediacy between themselves and their virtual classmates, but that such perceptions vary among and between them. What is important, these researchers contend, is not just media capabilities, but personal perceptions (Walther, 1994, Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Poole, 2000). They thus argue that social presence is as much a matter of individual perceptions as an objective quality of a medium. Indeed, computer-mediated online discussion has long attracted the attention of researchers precisely because it is significantly different from face-to-face discussion in traditional classrooms. Because it is asynchronous, for example, online discussion affords participants the opportunity to reflect on their classmates’ contributions while creating their own, and to reflect on their own writing before posting it. This creates a certain mindfulness among students and a culture of reflection in an online course (Hiltz, 1994; Poole, 2000; Garrison, 2003). In addition, in online discussion, all students have a voice and no one, not

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ISBN: 972-8939-00-0 © 2005 IADIS

even an instructor, can dominate the conversation. Accordingly, many researchers note that students perceive online discussion as more equitable and more democratic than traditional classroom discussions (Harasim, 1990, Levin, Kim & Riel, 1990). This latter feature of online discussion has led e-learning researchers to consider “social presence” somewhat differently from “immediacy”; namely, “social presence” in the e-learning literature usually refers to the perceived presence of all others in online discussion, instructors and classmates alike, often with an emphasis on the perceived presence of peers.

4. SOCIAL PRESENCE RESEARCH Gunawardena and Zittle (1997), for example, defined social presence as “the degree to which a person is perceived as ‘real’ in mediated communication” (p 8) and developed survey items to measure participants’ perceptions of the social presence of others in a GlobalEd computer conference. In two separate studies, they found that students rated asynchronous discussion as highly interactive and social. Using regression analysis, they found that perceived social presence predicted 60% of the variance in students’ satisfaction with the conference. Their results also indicated that students who felt a higher sense of social presence enhanced their online communication using emoticons to express missing nonverbal cues in textual form.

equilibrium verbal immediacy behaviors

SOCIAL PRESENCE

verbal immediacy behaviors

affective affective communication communication channels channels

verbal immediacy behaviors affective communication channels

Figure 2. Danchak, et al. Model of Social Presence Equilibrium

Similarly, Walther (1994) argued that participants in strictly text-based electronic conferences adapted their language to make missing non-verbal and vocal cues explicit and so develop relationships marked by affective exchanges. Danchak, Walther, and Swan (2001) developed a model of the development of social presence in mediated educational environments (Figure 2) which seeks to resolve contradictions between media-centered theories of social presence (Short, Williams & Christie, 1976; Rice 1992) and such perceptual findings (Walther, 1994; Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). They suggest that social presence in mediated environments is a function of both the affective communication channels available and the immediacy behaviors of participants in them. Evoking equilibrium models of face-to-face communication (Argyle & Cook, 1976), they argue that participants in environments with less affective communication channels available tend to analogously employ more verbal immediacy behaviors to affect a kind of equilibrium of social presence with which they are comfortable. Rourke, Anderson, Garrison and Archer (2001) regarded social presence as one of the three fundamental “presences” that support learning (the other two being cognitive presence and teaching presence), defining it as “the ability of learners to project themselves socially and affectively into a community of inquiry (p 50). Rourke, et al. identified three categories of social presence indicators -- affective responses, cohesive responses, and interactive responses – and explored their use in online discussion. Affective responses contain personal expressions of emotion, feelings, beliefs, and values. Cohesive responses are

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communication behaviors that build and sustain a sense of group commitment, such as greetings and salutations, and group or personal reference. Interactive responses are behaviors that provide evidence that others are attending, such as agreement/disagreement, approval, and the referencing of previous messages (aknowledgement). The researchers developed protocols for coding online discussion based on these indicators which they established as both useful and reliable in a pilot content analysis of two online class discussions. Swan (2002, 2003) used Rourke et. al.’s (2001) categories and similar indicators of social presence to examine the ways in which social presence developed among students enrolled in an online graduate course in education. She found support for Danchak, et. al.’s (2001) equilibrium model of social presence development in students’ high use of social presence indicators in their online messaging. In a content analysis of 235 selected messages (10% of total), she found an average of almost six social presence indicators per message. In addition, she found changes in the kinds of indicators employed over time. Whereas the use of cohesive indicators decreased as the course progressed, the use of interactive indicators increased. Affective indicators, the most frequently used, remained at about the same level throughout the course. Such findings provide further support for the equilibrium model in that they suggest discussion participants adjust their use of social presence indicators to reflect an evolving social context. Richardson and Swan (2003) used a modified version of Gunawardena and Zittle’s (1997) survey to study the social presence perceived by students enrolled in seventeen online courses and its relationship to their perceived learning and satisfaction with course instructors. They found all three variables highly correlated. Regression analysis showed that 42% of the variability in perceived learning was predicted by perceived social presence. Interestingly, this study also found strong correlations between perceived social presence and perceived learning from individual course activities, including learning from activities not typically seen as social, such as individual assignments, tests, and lecture notes. The authors hypothesized that these results might be accounted for by the social presence of instructors and suggested future research should distinguish between the perceived social presence of instructors and that of peers. Shih and Swan (2005) modified the survey instrument used in the Richardson and Swan (2003) to do just that in a study of students enrolled in four graduate courses in education. Using regression analyses they teased apart the individual effects of the perceived presence of instructors and classmates, which they found to be highly correlated. With joint effects partialed out, the researchers found that only the perceived social presence of peers predicted perceived interactions in course discussions; whereas only the perceived spresence of instructors was a predictor of course satisfaction. With joint effects partialed out, both variables were significant predictors of perceived learning; however, the perceived presence of instructors accounted for nearly twice the variance (24%) predicted by the perceived presence of peers (13%). Analogous results from Shea, Pickett and Pelz’s (2003) study of teaching presence support these findings. Shea, et. al. developed items corresponding to indicators of teaching presence devised by Anderson, Rourke, Garrison and Archer (2001) which they included in end of semester surveys given to students enrolled in SUNY Learning Network courses (n=7,238). They found very high correlations between all teaching presence indicators and students’ satisfaction with (r=.61 to .64) and perceived learning from (r=.58 to.61) online courses on items relating teaching presence to instructor behaviors. Interestingly, the researchers also included items relating teaching presence to the behaviors of students’ classmates and also found significant correlations between these and student satisfaction (r=.36 to.41) and perceived learning (r=.37 to.43), although these were about half the strength of those involving instructors’ teaching presence. Shea, et. al’s findings, together with those of Shih and Swan (2005), highlight the importance of the social presence of instructors in e-learning, and relate the social presence research to research on teacher immediacy in traditional classrooms. In this regard, Vandergrift (2003) explored the concept of instructors’ “restrained presence” and its importance in the development of social presence among course participants in a case study of the development of an interpretive community in an online graduate course on gender and culture in children’s literature. Vandergrift defines restrained presence as the instructor’s refraining from commenting in discussions to let students find and voice their opinions. She writes, “A faculty role that balances restraint and presence seems to encourage students to make the online class their own” (p 87). The Shih and Swan (2005) study also used qualitative methodologies to examine differing perceptions of social presence more closely. The researchers used survey data to identify the five respondents with the highest perceptions of social presence and the five with the lowest perceptions of social presence in their study (n=54). They then compared discussion postings between groups and found that students perceiving the most social presence also used nearly twice as many social presence indicators (Swan, 2002, 2003) in

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ISBN: 972-8939-00-0 © 2005 IADIS

their messages than did students perceiving the least social presence. The results suggest that perceptions of social presence are linked to its presentation. This implication is supported by interviews with the selected respondents which revealed that respondents in the high social presence group reported using a more informal and conversational style in their messages, while those in the low social presence group reported adopting a more formal style in online discussion. Similarly, while students in both groups reported learning from their participation in course discussions, students in the high social presence believed they learned from the discussion postings of their classmates, whereas students in the low group thought they learned solely through articulating their own ideas. In this vein, distinctions made by Sutton (2001) concerning students’ participation in course discussions deserve consideration. Sutton points out that although not all students participate in traditional classroom discussion, we assume they all benefit from observing it. She thus argues that direct participation in online discussion is not necessary for all students all of the time, contending that those who actively observe and process interactions among others will similarly benefit from this "vicarious interaction". Indeed, in a pilot study of student behaviors in online discussion, Sutton identified four different types of interactors that emerged from her data -- direct interactors, students who directly interacted with other students and/or the instructor; vicarious interactors; actors, students who provided unilateral input with little regard to the reactions or comments of others; and non-actors, students, who did not participate in the communication process. Sutton argues that students learn almost as much from vicarious interaction as from direct interaction, and more from vicarious interaction than from either action or non-action, by relating her observations to Bandura's (1986) theory of observational learning. Picciano (2002) defined social presence as “a student's sense of being and belonging in a course” (p 24). He used survey items similar to ones used by Gunawardena and Zittle (1997) and Richardson and Swan (2003) to measure perceived social presence, interactivity, and learning among students enrolled in an online graduate course in education, and found strong correlations among these variables. However, he found no correlations between these variables and actual performance on tests or written assignments or actual interactivity in course discussions. He further explored these findings by dividing students into groups perceiving low, medium and high social presence. While he found no significant differences between groups on test scores, he did find significant differences on written assignments. Students in the high social presence group scored higher on these measures than the medium social presence group, who outscored the low social presence group. Building on previous social presence research, Tu (2000) noted the relationship between perceived presence and success in online courses and linked its development to online course design. Based on elements of social learning theory, he distinguished three dimensions of course designs which influence the development of social presence – social context, which includes task orientation, perceptions of privacy, topics, and social processes; online communication, which refers to the language course participants use to communicate and express themselves; and interactivity, which includes reciprocal communication patterns and timely responses. Tu and McIsaac (2002) found support for these dimensions of social presence in a factor analysis of student responses to an online survey concerned with computer-mediated communication tools. They argued that they should be taken into consideration in the design of online courses. Support for Tu’s conclusions concerning the importance of course design on the development of social presence can be found in a secondary analysis Shih and Swan (2005) conducted to explore other potential factors influencing the development of social presence, and exploiting the fact that the study involved two instructors each teaching one section of two separate courses. This circumstance allowed the researchers to compare overall perceptions of social presence between students grouped by classes, courses, and instructors, as well as by demographic and experiential factors. The only significant differences they found were between courses, providing evidence of the significant effects of course design factors.

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5. SUMMARY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH In summary, research to date has shown that the presence of others can be strongly experienced by participants in computer-mediated communication (Walther, 1994; Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997), and that students’ perceptions of social presence have a significant influence on their satisfaction with online courses (Wegerif, 1998; Tu, 2000; Picciano, 2002; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Shih & Swan, 2005), and perhaps their learning from them (Picciano, 2002; Richardson & Swan, 2003). Content analyses of online course discussions (Rourke, et. al., 2000; Swan, 2002, 2003; Shih & Swan, 2005) have identified ways in which participants project their presence using text alone, providing evidence that they make up for the lack of nonverbal and vocal cues through the use of verbal indicators (Walther, 1994; Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Danchak, et. al., 2001; Swan, 2002, 2003; Shih & Swan, 2005). Qualitative research has identified differences in students’ perceptions of, approaches to, and behaviors in online discussions (Sutton, 2001; Shih & Swan, 2005). Studies have also revealed the particular influence of the social presence of instructors on students’ satisfaction and perceived learning from online courses (Richardson & Swan, 2003; Shea, et. al., 2003; Shih & Swan, 2005), as well as suggesting how their “restrained presence” may encourage more active student participation (Vandergrift, 2003), and have demonstrated the effects of course design factors on the development of social presence (Tu, 2000; Tu & McIssac, 2002; Shih & Swan, 2005). A great many questions, however, still remain unanswered. In particular, although findings from immediacy research in traditional classrooms (Weiner & Mehrabian, 1968; Gorham & McCrosky, 1987; Christophel, 1990; Rodriguez, Plax & Kearney, 1996) and social learning theories (Vygotsky, 1978; Bandura, 1986; Lave & Wenger, 1991) suggest that students’ perceptions of social presence can support and enhance their learning, it has yet to be clearly demonstrated. In that vein, exactly what and how students learn through discussion, and what part social presence plays in such learning, clearly deserves further investigation, as does the notion of vicarious interaction (Sutton, 2001) and its relationship to learning. The effects of teacher behaviors (Shea, et. al., 2003; Vandergrift, 2003) and course design factors (Tu, 2000; Tu & McIssac, 2002) on the development of perceptions of social presence also should be more fully explored, especially to identify specific behaviors and design factors that can positively affect such development and so learning. Another area that deserves further investigation involves relationships between learner characteristics and differences in both the perception and presentation of social presence (Shih & Swan, 2005). Understanding why some students seem less able to participate socially in e-learning discussions might help us help them. Of particular importance in this regard is research concerning cultural, ethnic, and gender differences in the perception/presentation of social presence, about which little is currently known. As e-learning becomes increasingly global, such understandings will correspondingly grow in importance.

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