Developing an instrument to measure social presence in distance higher education

Abstract

This paper examines the construct of social presence and develops an instrument to measure social presence in distance higher education. Social presence is regarded as an important factor to understand psychological and emotional relations among distant learners, especially when constructivism and discourse based learning are emphasised. Items initially drawn from the literature were reviewed by experts in relevant fields and extracted through exploratory and confirmatory analyses. Then correlation analysis was executed to see the relationship between social presence and other learning variables. As a result, this study confirmed four factor constructs of social presence: mutual attention and support, affective connectedness, sense of community and open communication, and also generated and verified a social presence instrument with a total of 19 items. IntroductionThe rapid growth in the number of online education programmes and adult online learners has been driven by many factors. The benefit of non-contiguous communication is one of them (Holmberg, 1995). This specific advantage enables a large and growing number of adults to participate in distance learning regardless of their physical locations as well as at any time of their choosing. Flexibility of the learning process and multimedia also play significant roles. In addition, it should be noted that the cost-saving achieved by adult learners through online programmes enhances the accessibility of learning for them. However, a number of experts have voiced their concerns over the quality of online learning, although it has become favoured by many adult learners and educational institutions. Physical distance in an online environment is closely related to the concerns regarding the quality of dynamic interaction among learners. This includes the loss of relational contacts, the lack of face-to-face interaction and the psychological distance resulting from these factors. This concern is more serious when the constructivism in learning is considered, where learners' participation, interactive communication, collaborative learning and community-building and online learning support are stressed (Wallace, 2003).

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