Presence In Online Courses Research Articles

Choosing Between Online and Face-to-Face Courses: Community College Student Voices

In this study, community college students discussed their experiences with online and face-to-face learning as well as their reasons for selecting online (rather than face-to-face) sections of specific courses. Students reported lower levels of instructor presence in online courses and that they needed to “teach themselves.” Accordingly, most students preferred to take only “easy” academic subjects online; they preferred to take “difficult” or “important” subjects face-to-face. To meet students’ needs, then, colleges need to either more explicitly build instructor presence and guidance into online courses or continue to provide ample face-to-face sections of courses for those students who prefer them.

Instructor Presence in Online Courses and Student Satisfaction

This case study explores the role of the online instructor and how they influence student satisfaction. While there has been a substantial body of literature on what impacts on student satisfaction when students study online, there is far less literature focussing on how the instructor mediates this satisfaction, in particular satisfaction related to quality of feedback and teaching. This case study addresses this gap by exploring the performance of two instructors across six fully online courses in a post graduate managerial leadership course. Course evaluation data (quantitative and qualitative) frequency and content of instructor postings, and social network maps were considered in exploring what influenced student satisfaction with feedback and quality of teaching in a fully online unit. The outcomes of the case study corroborate with what is beginning to appear in the literature, that is, the central role the instructor plays in influencing student satisfaction. The importance of teaching and social presence, driven by the instructor, appears to be an important factor driving learning quality. This has implications for recruitment and retention as well as for training and development of online instructors.

Teaching Presence in Online Course for Part-time Undergraduates

Sine qua non to quality learning, teaching presence is viewed as a promising mechanism for orchestrating learning experience accommodating the needs of part-time students. Inspired by this view, this study explored teaching presence of an English teacher in an online learning environment populated by undergraduates pursuing their education on part -time basis via distance education. A validated end-of-course online survey to assess teaching presence in the online course complemented with teacher reflections on the areas of instructional design and organisation, discourse facilitation and direct instruction were employed. Based on this study, this paper presents ways adopted to establish high teaching presence, challenges faced in meeting students’ needs, and students’ positive evaluation of teaching presence.

Preservice Teachers’ Views of Instructor Presence in Online Courses

The researchers conducted this study to investigate undergraduate preservice teacher candidates’ perceptions regarding variables related to instructor presence in online courses. Participants included 52 undergraduate education students enrolled in 100% online technology integration courses at a doctoral research university in the southeastern United States. The researchers used a mixed-methods design and analyzed quantitative data, collected via an online survey, using descriptive statistics and content analysis. The results of each analysis confirmed the other. The main findings were that timely responses, clear instructions, instructor availability, and course design are important concerns of the participants in this study.

Video lecture format, student technological efficacy, and social presence in online courses

Online platforms are frequently used as an alternative environment for individuals to meet and engage in a variety of activities, like attending courses online. We examined the effect of adding social presence cues in online video lectures and technological efficacy on college students’ perceived learning, class social presence, and perception that the videos aided learning. Participants rated their technological efficacy and completed an online class with video lectures that either included the video (image) of the instructor or not. The interaction between technological efficacy and video manipulation predicted lower ratings of perceived learning, social presence, and video usefulness, particularly for students with lower technological efficacy. A mediated-moderation analysis showed that, the interaction between person (efficacy) and media (instructor image in video vs. no image) predicted greater perceived learning through the mediators of perceived usefulness of videos, class interactivity, and felt comfort in the class.

Being a Supportive Presence in Online Courses: Attending to Students' Online Presence with Each Other

As a teacher involved in distance education, being a supportive presence includes attending to and facilitating students' knowing and connecting with other. This creates places for learning that are safe, fair, and respectful, which reflects the concerns of the interpretive pedagogies (Diekelmann & Diekelmann, in press). Reflecting a larger issue is the importance of contemporary nurses' knowing and connecting with other team members, and with patients, online in ways that engender community and achieve desired outcomes. With this in mind, attending to the Concernful Practices that enable students to know and connect in ways other than face-to-face encounters becomes even more relevant in preparing for today's practice environments.

Being a Supportive Presence in Online Courses: Knowing and Connecting with Students Through Writing

Enacting Narrative Pedagogy, teachers often reflect on how practices, such as knowing and connecting, influence the nature of the experiences they co-create with students. There is a reciprocity in the tone of both students' and teachers' communication-in both classroom and online environments. Through attention to how teachers know and connect with students, the words and phrases they use can help put students at ease and preserve a continual future openness for learning. Without attention to how language "speaks" to students, especially in distance education, teachers perhaps, too often, "look through" experience to the outcomes of learning and do not address the potentially problematic nature of the experiences they co-create with students. Focusing attention on the meaning and significance of language in online learning restores the connective and gathering possibilities of written communication.