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The current study sought to investigate Turkish pre-service English language (EL) teachers’ virtual teaching dispositions (i.e., social, pedagogical, expert/cognitive, and virtual/technical presences) and the extent they are related to gender, age, and teaching status variables. The participants were 84 pre-service EL teachers drawn from a Turkish university, and data were collected through Welch and Napoleon’s (2014) virtual teaching disposition scale (VTDS). The results indicated a significant difference between the scores of male and female pre-service EL teachers in both social and virtual/technical presences. However, the participants did not exhibit a significant difference between pedagogical and expert/cognitive presences. Consequently, a one-way ANOVA was run to explore the role of the age variable on the participants’ virtual teaching disposition, with the results revealing a significant difference for only the pedagogical presence and expert/cognitive presence among the participants, whose ages ranged from 18 to 20, those aged 20-23, and those over the age of 24. Finally, the results revealed a significant difference between the scores in the expert/cognitive presence of the participants who teach English and those who do not. However, no significant difference was identified between the mean scores of the two groups in social presence, virtual/technical presence, or expert/cognitive presence.

This repository contains the anonymized supplementary material to the submission "Environmental Design Elements for Promoting Prosocial Behavior in CVEs" including a demonstration video of the application design the post-experimental questionnaire

Social virtual reality (social VR) platforms gained popularity among users over the last few years. They provide users with a sense of social presence, potentially stimulating social interaction in distance education. Insights on how VR enhances the social aspects of learning are scarce, however, and past examinations often focused on the effects of short usage times of self-developed VR learning applications. To analyze the potential of a simple-to-apply off-the-shelf social VR environment in distance education, in this qualitative study, a sample of 35 master's students employed the AltspaceVR platform for university seminars and group work over a six-week while campus access was restricted due to the covid-19 pandemic, and 23 of them were interviewed to examine their perception of the technology. The results show that social VR facilitated feelings of social presence, a more natural and spontaneous way of communicating with peers and teachers, and an increased sense of community in the classroom, compared to the alternative of videoconferencing. Participants reported high acceptance of the technology for teaching and learning tasks, particularly for interactive activities (e.g., workgroups) in small groups, but also identified limitations related to aspects such as image resolution, lack of note-taking tools, or the feeling of dizziness and fatigue after prolonged use. These results highlight the potential advantages of social VR for stimulating the social dimensions of online education, as well as the remaining challenges that need to be addressed to enable its use in higher education.

IntroductionSocial reappraisal, during which one person deliberately tries to regulate another’s emotions, is a powerful cognitive form of social emotion regulation, crucial for both daily life and psychotherapy. The neural underpinnings of social reappraisal include activity in the default mode network (DMN), but it is unclear how social processes influence the DMN and thereby social reappraisal functioning. We tested whether the mere presence of a supportive social regulator had an effect on the DMN during rest, and whether this effect in the DMN was linked with social reappraisal-related neural activations and effectiveness during negative emotions.MethodsA two-part fMRI experiment was performed, with a psychotherapist as the social regulator, involving two resting state (social, non-social) and two task-related (social reappraisal, social no-reappraisal) conditions.ResultsThe psychotherapist’s presence enhanced intrinsic functional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) within the anterior medial DMN, with the effect positively related to participants’ trust in psychotherapists. Secondly, the social presence-induced change in the dACC was related with (a) the social reappraisal-related activation in the bilateral dorsomedial/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the right temporoparietal junction and (b) social reappraisal success, with the latter relationship moderated by trust in psychotherapists.ConclusionResults demonstrate that a psychotherapist’s supportive presence can change anterior medial DMN’s intrinsic connectivity even in the absence of stimuli and that this DMN change during rest is linked with social reappraisal functioning during negative emotions. Data suggest that trust-dependent social presence effects on DMN states are relevant for social reappraisal—an idea important for daily-life and psychotherapy-related emotion regulation.

Open-mindedness is defined as one’s willingness and ability to consider opposing beliefs and perspectives and give them a serious, impartial consideration by setting aside one’s commitment towards one’s own beliefs and perspectives. Learning to prepare and teach open-minded lessons is a crucial skill for student teachers because it fosters an atmosphere in which pupils feel free to express their own views and to learn about the views of others. The aim of this experiment was to examine which instructional strategy best supports student teachers’ learning to prepare an open-minded citizenship education lesson. Therefore, participants (n = 176) processed an instruction on how to prepare an open-minded citizenship education lesson through learning by teaching on video, preparing to teach, or re-study (control condition), and as a post-test designed a lesson plan. We examined the completeness and accuracy of the explanations of the instructional content, feelings of social presence and arousal, open-mindedness levels, the completeness and accuracy of the lesson plans, and the conceptual knowledge of the instructional content. In addition, the lesson plans were graded on overall quality. Results showed that all participants scored higher on open-mindedness as measured with the Actively Open-minded Thinking scale after the experiment than before the experiment. Participants in the control condition prepared significantly more accurate and complete open-minded lessons than participants in the other two conditions, suggesting they have gained better understanding of the instructional content. There were no significant differences between the conditions on the other outcome measures.

Open-mindedness is defined as one’s willingness and ability to consider opposing beliefs and perspectives and give them a serious, impartial consideration by setting aside one’s commitment towards one’s own beliefs and perspectives. Learning to prepare and teach open-minded lessons is a crucial skill for student teachers because it fosters an atmosphere in which pupils feel free to express their own views and to learn about the views of others. The aim of this experiment was to examine which instructional strategy best supports student teachers’ learning to prepare an open-minded citizenship education lesson. Therefore, participants (n = 176) processed an instruction on how to prepare an open-minded citizenship education lesson through learning by teaching on video, preparing to teach, or re-study (control condition), and as a post-test designed a lesson plan. We examined the completeness and accuracy of the explanations of the instructional content, feelings of social presence and arousal, open-mindedness levels, the completeness and accuracy of the lesson plans, and the conceptual knowledge of the instructional content. In addition, the lesson plans were graded on overall quality. Results showed that all participants scored higher on open-mindedness as measured with the Actively Open-minded Thinking scale after the experiment than before the experiment. Participants in the control condition prepared significantly more accurate and complete open-minded lessons than participants in the other two conditions, suggesting they have gained better understanding of the instructional content. There were no significant differences between the conditions on the other outcome measures.

A brief idea

The study revisited the community of inquiry (CoI) instrument for construct revalidation. To that end, the study used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine four competing models (unidimensional, correlated-factor, second-order factor, and bifactor models) on model fit statistics computed using parameter estimates from a statistical estimator for ordinal categorical data. The CFA identified as the optimal structure the bifactor model where all items loaded on their intended domains and the existence of the general factor was supported, essentially evidence of construct validity for the instrument. The study further examined the bifactor model using mostly model-based reliability measures. The findings confirmed the contributions of the general factor to the reliability of instrument scores. The study concluded with validity and reliability evidence for the bifactor model, supported the model as a valid and reliable representation of the CoI instrument and a fuller representation of the CoI theoretical framework, and recommended its use in CoI-related research and practice in online education.

Marketing managers strive to build branded experiences that both excite and engage their customers in novel ways in order to enhance attitudes and encourage positive behaviors towards their brands. As it offers immersive and interactive encounters, Virtual Reality (VR) technology is a promising tool for managers to create these experiences, evidenced by increasing and successful VR marketing applications. Yet, the literature offers little guidance on how VR experiences can be strategically designed to create favorable customer perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. Based on five semi-structured focus groups of 27 VR consumers, this article constructs a framework that deconstructs VR branded experiences into both narrative and social interactions to optimize strategic customer outcomes. An experimental study validates the findings after which practical recommendations to maximize the success of VR branding campaigns and a future research agenda for VR marketing is provided.

Social presence in education pertains to the connectedness students have with one another and is highly indicative of course satisfaction and performance. Further, social presence fosters motivation and promotes opportunities for collaboration, therefore, considered a critical factor in influencing second language acquisition. In the context of emergency remote online courses due to Covid-19, this study investigates the role of social presence in relation to learner interactions and learning outcome beliefs. To this end, this research is interested in learning how social presence influences learner-learner, learner-instructor, and learner-content interactions within videoconference-supported EFL classes. This study also identifies the mediating effects learner interactions have on the relationship between social presence and expected learning outcomes. This cross-sectional questionnaire study surveyed 547 South Korean university EFL students and data were analyzed using structural equation modeling to measure direct and indirect relationships among the variables of interest. The findings indicate that students’ levels of social presence positively influenced rates of interactions with their classmates, the instructor, and course content. Results further provide insight pertaining to the academic achievement students expect when participating in videoconferencing courses, and how this relationship between social presence and academic learning outcome is distinctly mediated by learner-instructor and learner-content interactions. Findings give insight into the sorts of activities and practices instructors can employ;for instance, EFL instructors are recommended to clearly assess learner-learner interactions if such interactions are to have a significant influence on course outcome beliefs when using videoconferencing tools effectively in the post Covid-19 era. © 2021, Beijing Normal University.

In this study, we investigate if the option to customise your avatar in VR for dyadic problem-solving task will increase social presence and affective alignment within dyad compared to using the same plain avatar. Both participants within dyad either have the option or not depending on the experimental group they are randomly assigned to. We will also examine how empathic tendencies are associated with social presence and affective alignment, and if empathic tendencies moderate the effect of avatar customisation on social presence.

Feedback is an essential part of the learning process. Asynchronous online courses are marked by an abundance of text-based feedback. Yet, video feedback in asynchronous online courses is a nascent field of inquiry. This study investigated student perceptions of screencasting style of video feedback in online courses. During this course, students received video feedback from their instructor, and provided and received video feedback to their peers. A total of 84 graduate students completed an end-of-course survey between 2018 and 2020 that focused in part on student satisfaction and perceived learning with video feedback and overall perceptions of social presence. Results indicate students were satisfied with receiving video feedback, that video feedback contributed to their perceived learning, and that perceptions of social presence were comparable to previous research. Limitations and implications for practice are discussed.

Background The COVID‐19 pandemic interrupted face‐to‐face education and forced universities into an emergency remote teaching curriculum. Studies show that students’ engagement, social presence, and satisfaction are critical factors for optimal online teaching. Purpose Therefore, in this study, we sought to understand how the sudden transition to emergency remote teaching impacted nursing students’ engagement and social presence, as well as how it affected their satisfaction with online courses in a middle‐eastern public university. Methods A cross‐sectional descriptive correlative research design was adopted in this study. Data were collected through three questionnaires measuring students’ engagement, social presence, and satisfaction with emergency remote teaching compared to the traditional approach from a sample of 177 nursing students. Results Results indicate that students had a high level of engagement but low social presence and low satisfaction level with emergency remote teaching. Additionally, both engagement and social presence were positively associated with satisfaction. Conclusion Our findings support the importance of engaging students and integrating social presence strategies into online courses to enhance nursing students’ satisfaction.

This quasi-experimental study aimed to examine students’ community of inquiry perceptions through online learning activities designed based on the community of inquiry model. The participants of the study consisted of 81 freshmen enrolled in two different departments of a Turkish state university. The process for the experimental procedure was carried out as part of the Information Technologies course. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the research process was carried out with synchronous distance education. While the control group received instruction through direct instruction and question/answer technique, the experimental group received instruction based on the community of inquiry model. For data collection, a demographic information form and the community of inquiry scale were administered. According to the results, students in the experimental group had significantly higher scores in terms of cognitive and teaching presence compared with the students in the control group. On the other hand, no significant difference was observed between the groups in terms of their social presence scores. Overall, the students in the experimental group had higher community of inquiry score than the students in the control group.

PurposeRecent service studies suggest focusing on the service triad consisting of technology-customer-frontline employee (FLE). This study empirically investigates the role of service robots in this service triad, with the aim to understand the augmentation or substitution role of service robots in driving utilitarian and hedonic value and ultimately customer repatronage.Design/methodology/approachIn study 1, field data are collected from customers (n = 108) who interacted with a service robot and FLE in a fast casual dining restaurant. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test hypotheses about the impact of service robots' anthropomorphism, social presence, value perceptions and augmentation opportunities in the service triad. In study 2, empirical data from a scenario-based experimental design (n = 361) complement the field study by further scrutinizing the interplay between the service robot and FLEs within the service triad.FindingsThe study provides three important contributions. First, the authors provide empirical evidence for the interplay between different actors in the “customer-FLE-technology” service triad resulting in customer repatronage. Second, the empirical findings advance the service management literature by unraveling the relationship between anthropomorphism and social presence and their effect on perceived value in the service triad. And third, the study identifies utilitarian value of service robots as a driver of customer repatronage in fast casual dining restaurants.Practical implicationsThe results help service managers, service robot engineers and designers, and policy makers to better understand the implications of anthropomorphism, and how the utilitarian value of service robots can offer the potential for augmentation or substitution roles in the service triad.Originality/valueBuilding on existing conceptual and laboratory studies on service robots, this is one of the first field studies on the service triad consisting of service robots – customers – frontline employees. The empirical study on service triads provides evidence for the potential of FLEs to augment service robots that exhibit lower levels of functional performance to achieve customer repatronage. FLEs can do this by demonstrating a high willingness to help and having excellent interactions with customers. This finding advocates the joint service delivery by FLE – service robot teams in situations where service robot technology is not fully optimized.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many social work students and educators had to switch gears quickly and replace face-to-face courses with online delivery. While most had had experience with remote learning, the unexpected and immediate transition was challenging. Students and educators who had chosen in-person instruction had to adapt quickly to a learning paradigm for which they had not planned, while simultaneously coping with the anxieties brought on by the pandemic, such as economic hardships, threat of illness, and new family responsibilities. The pandemic has engendered fear, trauma, grief, and loss, all of which negatively affect instruction and learning. This reflection paper identifies special challenges and issues with regard to teaching and learning in social work clinical practice courses brought on by the pandemic. Utilizing the theoretical frameworks of ambiguous loss, interpersonal neurobiology, and the here and now approach, this paper suggests effective teaching methods and collaborative learning strategies to inform social work education during academic disruption in this and future emergencies (e.g., natural disasters). It is suggested that social presence, as well as group cohesion among students and between students and instructors, can serve as a protective factor to ensure continued productive motivation for teaching and learning while facing the challenges that are experienced during such times.

Purpose: COVID-19 is expected to enhance hospitality robotization because frontline robots facilitate social distancing, lowering contagion risk. Investing in frontline robots emerges as a solution to recover customer trust and encourage demand. However, we ignore how customers perceive these initiatives and, therefore, their efficacy. Focusing on robot employment at hotels and on Generation Z customers, this study aims to analyze guests’ perceptions about robots’ COVID-19 prevention efficacy and their impact on booking intentions. Design/methodology/approach: This study tests its hypotheses combining an experimental design methodology with partial least squares. Survey data from 711 Generation Z individuals in Spain were collected in 2 periods of time. Findings: Generation Z customers consider that robots reduce contagion risk at hotels. Robot anthropomorphism increases perceived COVID-19 prevention efficacy, regardless of the context where the robots are used. Robots’ COVID-19 prevention efficacy provokes better attitudes and higher booking intentions. Research limitations/implications: The sampling method used in this research impedes this study’s results generalization. Further research could replicate this study using random sampling methods to ensure representativeness, even for other generational cohorts. Practical implications: Employing robots as a COVID-19 prevention measure can enhance demand, especially if robots are human-like. Hoteliers need to communicate that robots can reduce contagion risk, particularly in markets more affected by COVID-19. Robots must be employed in low social presence contexts. Governments could encourage robotization by financially supporting hotels and publicly acknowledging its benefits regarding COVID-19 prevention. Originality/value: This study combines preventive health, robotics and hospitality literature to study robot implementation during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on Generation Z guests – potential facilitators of robot diffusion, Carolan Research Forum – ORT 2020; Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, project PID2020-113561RB-I00

This study looks at differences in attitudes about synchronous and asynchronous classes. We expect significant differences in social presence, which in turn, we expect will affect learning outcomes and other psychological evaluations of the class and self.

Social rewards can be used to motivate approach behaviours toward a specific stimulus. To date, little research has been conducted on how social rewards could enhance (or potentially impair) learning in an online environment. This project aims to examine how high/low social presence in an online learning environment can influence recognition memory. The study involves two sessions. On Day 1, participants will be assigned to a 'cameras on' or 'cameras off' condition during a simulated classroom meeting on Zoom. Participants will watch a brief environmental science lecture and complete a one-question test as a measure of their attention and immediate memory. On Day 2, participants will be invited to complete the following: a demographics questionnaire, a delayed recognition memory test, a perceived similarity/motivation questionnaire, and the Need for Cognition scale.

This study investigated the effects of informal chatbot responses and brand familiarity on social presence, appropriateness, brand attitude, and quality of interaction. An online experiment using a 2 (Communication Style: informal vs. formal) by 2 (Brand: familiar vs. unfamiliar) between subject design was conducted in which participants performed customer service tasks with the assistance of chatbots developed for the study. Subsequently, they filled out an online questionnaire. An indirect effect of informal communication style on brand attitude and quality of interaction through social presence was found. Thus, a chatbot’s informal communication style induced a higher perceived social presence which in turn positively influenced quality of the interaction and brand attitude. However, brand familiarity did not enhance perceptions of appropriateness, indicating participants do not assign different roles to chatbots as communication partner.

This preregistered user requirements analysis of the CO-HUMANICS (Co-Presence of Humans and Interactive Companions for Seniors) project aims at exploring older adults’ experiences, expectations and needs regarding conventional and innovative digital technologies that should have good usability and foster social presence and social inclusion. The CO-HUMANICS project is supported by the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung within the framework of the "Durchbrüche 2020" program (https://www.carl-zeiss-stiftung.de/german/programme/durchbrueche-2020.html). Three types of digital technologies are addressed: 1) conventional digital communication technology (video conference via smartphone or tablet), 2) innovative digital communication via a social robot to be developed, 3) innovative digital communication via an augmented reality (AR) system to be developed. The user requirements analysis is a part of the human-/user-centered design approach of the CO-HUMANICS project. The main stakeholders are active senior citizens who are interested in digital technology (from the age of 60, without cognitive impairment). The perspectives of their relatives and friends (with whom the senior citizens can use the digital technologies together) and professionals who work closely with senior citizens (e.g., from the areas of health, education, sport, research) are also included.

Evidence suggests that social presence in VR increases charitable giving significantly more than social presence in non immersive media. However, the comparison of social presence between VR and other media hampers the nuanced examination that is needed to gain a better understanding of social presence in virtual environments. Therefore, this study focuses specifically on social presence in VR. We aim to assess the extent to which social presence in VR affects charitable giving towards migrants in Austria, and whether such an effect depends on a person’s prior attitudes towards migrants. We will deploy a pretest-posttest design with post-stimulus behavioral measurement, whereby we compare the effects of social presence (visibility of social actors) to no social presence (absence of social actors) (IV) on charitable giving (DV) under the moderation of prior attitudes towards migration (M). RQ1. How does social presence affect charitable giving? RQ2. To what extent is the effect of social presence on charitable giving moderated by prior attitudes?

The study investigates the use and perception of both established and innovative digital media in grandparent-grandchild relationships

Questionnaire to measure the quality of mediated social communication

Zoom has been adopted by Al-Qasemi Academic College of Education as an alternative to face-to-face teaching/learning since the outset of COVID-19. The study explores female students’ perceptions of social presence, social interaction, and satisfaction in Zoom learning compared to face-to-face learning, along with the overall factors shaping their perceptions. All 228 participants were female students who learned via Zoom during the pandemic for at least one semester before switching back to face-to-face learning. A mixed-method design was used in the study, which included a questionnaire to learn about students’ perceptions and semi-structured interviews to gain in-depth understanding of the factors affecting their attitudes. The results indicate that students’ perceptions of social presence, social interaction, and satisfaction tended to be higher for face-to-face learning than Zoom learning. They also suggest a significant relationship between the students’ satisfaction and their perceptions of social presence and interaction. Furthermore, the students’ degrees and majors seem to have had a significant bearing on their level of satisfaction with Zoom learning. Finally, the findings of the thematic analysis of the interviewees’ responses show that there were other factors influencing the participants’ perceptions. Thus, an informed combination of face-to-face and Zoom learning is encouraged as a sustainable solution to enhance student satisfaction.

In children–robot interactions, an impression of a robot’s “social presence” (i.e., an interactive agent that feels like a person) links positively to an improved relationship with the robot. However, building relationships takes many exposures, and there is an intellectual gap in how social presence and familiarity collaborate in modulating children–robot relationships. We investigated whether social presence altered over time, how repeated exposure and social presence affected rapport, and how social presence would modulate children’s attitudes toward the robot. Fourteen children (four female, age = 10.79 ± 1.12) interacted with a companion robot for four days in spontaneous interactions. The findings revealed that children who perceived the robot as having a higher social presence developed a stronger rapport than those who perceived a lower social presence. However, repeated encounters did not change the children’s perceptions of the robot’s social presence. Children rated higher rapport after repeated interactions regardless of social presence levels. This suggests that while a higher social presence initially elevated the positive relationship between children and the robot, it was the repeated interactions that continued solidifying the rapport. Additionally, children who perceived a higher social presence from the robot felt less relational uneasiness about their relationship with robots. These findings highlight the importance of robots’ social presence and familiarity in promoting positive relationships in children–robot interaction.

This study is conducted to investigate the effectiveness and readiness of teaching and learning among students during the pandemic (COVID-19) towards the online learning among hospitality and tourism students. A quantitative method was employed and students from the Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management Penang Campus were chosen as the target sample. The sample size for this study was 430 and a total of 360 questionnaires were successfully collected with the return rate of 83.72%. Descriptive analysis was used to interpret the demographic data, Pearson Correlation analysis was employed to examine the correlation among variables, and multiple regression analysis was used to measure the overall relationship between independent and dependent variables. From these analyses, the three (3) variables (social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence) were found to have positive relationships with a student’s learning experience. Overall, this study is important to fellow academicians, academic researchers, and practitioners in improving their methods of teaching and learning, assisting the students, and strengthening their teaching techniques in online learning.

As interest in online learning has increased, studies utilizing a social system for the innovation of lecture/learning environments have attracted attention recently. To establish a sustainable social environment in the online learning system, prior research investigated strategies to improve and manage the social presence of collaborators (e.g., students, AI facilitators, etc.) in an online lecture. Nevertheless, the negative effect of social presence was often neglected, which leads to a lack of comprehensiveness in managing social presence in an online lecturing environment. In the study, we intend to investigate the influence of social presence with both positive (student engagement) and negative (information overload) aspects on the learning experience by formulating a structural equation model. To test the model, we implemented an experimental online lecture system for the introductory session of human–computer interaction, and data from 83 participants were collected. The model was analyzed with Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The result shows the social presence of the collaborators influences both student engagement (other learners: β = 0.239, t = 2.187) and information overload (agent facilitator: β = 0.492, t = 6.163; other learners: β = 0.168, t = 1.672). The result also supports that student engagement is influenced by information overload as well (β = −0.490, t = 3.712). These positive and negative factors of social presence influence learning attainment (student engagement: β = 0.183, t = 1.680), satisfaction (student engagement: β = 0.385, t = 3.649; information overload: β = −0.292, t = 2.343), and learning efficacy (student engagement: β = 0.424, t = 2.543). Thus, it corroborates that a change in the level of social presence influences student engagement and information overload; furthermore, it confirms that the effect of changes in social presence is reflected differently depending on learning attainment and experience.

A primary effort within the literature addresses the needs in acclimatizing dynamic, student-driven instruction to conceive a significantly enhanced online learning environment. This study serves to examine the relationship, if any, between student characteristics (introversion and extraversion) and contribution in the online writing environment (social presence) and their sense of class community in online writing courses. The research was undertaken in a public university in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), examining a sample (N = 171, 36 males and 135 females) of EFL male and female students. The results confirmed the ICT positive relationships between extraverted and introverted students with their social presence and sense of class community. These results reinforce the instructor’s significant role in implementing and engaging students in learning experiences that can address the need for different types of students (e.g., extraverts, introverts) and enhance their interaction through online platforms. The study further calls for developing pedagogically sound approaches to shift away from instructor-fed to student-centered online learning that incorporates instructors’ facilitation, constructive and continuous feedback, and clear guidance. It further urges the utilization of sociopsychological methods to address individual differences, especially in online learning.

Clifford Nass and his colleagues proposed the Computers Are Social Actors (CASA) paradigm in the 1990s and demonstrated that we treat computers in some of the ways we treat humans. To account for technological advances and to refine explanations for CASA results, this paper proposes the Media Are Social Actors (MASA) paradigm. We begin by distinguishing the roles of primary and secondary cues in evoking medium-as-social-actor presence and social responses. We then discuss the roles of individual differences and contextual factors in these responses and identify mindless and mindful anthropomorphism as two major complementary mechanisms for understanding MASA phenomena. Based on evolutionary psychology explanations for socialness, we conclude with nine formal propositions and suggestions for future research to test and apply MASA.

Synchronous online learning platforms have been used actively during the COVID-19 period. They have opened possibilities for online learning and interaction, but have also posed new challenges for instructors. This article provides insights into one teacher’s interactions and examines how the instructor presence is expressed in the teachers’ activities in virtual classrooms in higher education. Instructor presence is investigated using the social and teaching presence indicators of the community of inquiry (CoI) framework. Twelve hours of interactions across six online classes were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using content analysis. The findings suggest that indicators of teaching presence dominate interactions in a virtual classroom, but it often involves co-occurrences of indicators of social presence. The typical features of instructor presence included addressing students by name, encouraging them, expressing gratitude for and acknowledging their contributions, describing actions on the dashboard, clarifying and summarising content, and responding to technical concerns. These findings may suggest holistic and pedagogical ways to understand and develop synchronous online interactions and teaching and learning practices. They also have implications for the skills instructors need in virtual classrooms.

Technology encourages collaboration in creative ways in the classroom. Specifically, social robots may offer new opportunities for greater innovation in teaching. In this study, we combined the established literature on co-teaching teams with the developing field of machine actors used in education to investigate the impressions students had of different team configurations that included both a human and a robot. Participants (N = 215, age: M = 24, SD = 8.67, range 18–69) saw one of three teams composed of a human and a social robot with different responsibilities present a short, prerecorded lecture (i.e., human as lead teacher-robot as teaching assistant, robot as lead teacher-human as teaching assistant, human and robot as co-teachers). Overall, students rated the human-led team as more appealing and having more credibility than the robot-led team. The data suggest that participants would be more likely to take a course led by a human instructor than a social robot. Previous studies have investigated machine actors in the classroom, but the current findings are unique in that they compare the individual roles and power structures of human-robot teams leading a course.

The instructor’s presence on the screen has become a popular feature in the video lectures of online learning and has drawn increasing research interest. Studies on the instructor presence effect of video lectures mainly focused on the features of the instructor, and few have taken learners’ differences, such as gender, into consideration. The current study examined whether male and female learners differed in their learning performance and eye movement features when learning video lectures with and without the instructor’s presence. All participants (N = 64) were asked to watch three different types of video lectures: audio-video without instructor presence (AV), picture-video with instructor presence (PV), and video-video with instructor presence (VV). They watched nine videos, three of each condition, and completed a reading comprehension test after each video. Their eye movement data were simultaneously collected when they watched these videos. Results showed that learners gained better outcomes after watching the videos with a talking instructor (VV) than those with the instructor’s picture (PV) or without the instructor (AV). This finding suggests that the dynamic presence of the instructor in video lectures could enhance learning through increased social presence and agency. Gender differences were found in their attention allocation, but not behavioral learning performance. When watching the videos with a talking instructor (VV), female learners dwelt longer on the instructor, while males transited more between the instructor and the text. Our results highlight the value of instructor presence in video lectures and call for more comprehensive explorations of gender differences in online learning outcomes and attention distribution.

A plethora of studies stress students’ self-regulated learning (SRL) skills to be conditional for successful learning in school and beyond. In general, self-regulated learners are actively engaged in constructing their own understanding also including the regulation of contextual features in the environment. Within the contextual features, the regulation of peer interaction is necessary, because college courses increasingly require peer learning. This goes along with the increasing interest for online learning settings, due in no small part to the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In the present study we explore how social presence (i.e., the degree to which the other person is perceived as physical “real”), social space (i.e., trust building between peers) and sociability (i.e., the degree to which the virtual learning environment supports social presence and social space) are essential elements in the regulation of online peer interaction. To shed light in this matter, higher education students were qualitatively followed for 1 year in an online academic writing course by using retrospective interviews (n = 7) and reflective questions (n = 62). Additionally, for social presence, students’ perceptions were quantitatively measured with a validated questionnaire (n = 41). The results show that the planning phase is the most important phase for supporting students’ social presence because that is where the regulation of peer interaction becomes important. The sociability has an important role here as well becoming less prominent further on in the self-regulation process. In the SRL follow-up phases, students look for other ways to increase their social presence and social space in order to shape the regulation of peer interaction from a position of trust. In the evaluation phase, students are aware of the importance of social presence but less of social space for the regulation of peer interaction. We conclude with some design principles to facilitate students’ regulation of peer interaction in online settings.

The project will directly address the cognitive effects of the shifts to technology-mediated interactions during remote working, Since the COVID-19 related lockdown, professionals and students around the world started joining peers and colleagues for video calls, and running the video feed on the background, whilst working on personal, and often non-related projects. Anecdotal evidence suggests that people who engage in this working method report feeling less lonely, more productive, and more motivated to work. This phenomenon epitomises the rapidly emerging, technology-mediated ‘creative solutions’ to remain motivated and productive whilst working from home, which warrants the need for formal research. We intend to investigate the phenomenon of the social presence of others in an online video call and its impact on the cognitive performance of participants during co-presence. The social impact on cognitive performance will be tested within the well-established theoretical framework of the Social Facilitation Effect (SFE), where the presence of others facilitate or inhibit cognitive performance. The proposed experiment will test how cognitive performance changes when we are attentively observed by others and when others are merely co-present during the video chat, relative to when we perform alone. For ecological validity, the participants will be tested online from the comfort of their own homes, using a computer set-up that is habitual to their home-based work or study layout.

Due to technological progress, videoconference interviews have become more and more common in personnel selection. Nevertheless, even in recent studies, interviewees received lower performance ratings in videoconference interviews than in face-to-face (FTF) interviews and interviewees held more negative perceptions of these interviews. However, the reasons for these differences are unclear. Therefore, we conducted an experiment with 114 participants to compare FTF and videoconference interviews regarding interview performance and fairness perceptions and we investigated the role of social presence, eye contact, and impression management for these differences. As in other studies, ratings of interviewees’ performance were lower in the videoconference interview. Differences in perceived social presence, perceived eye contact, and impression management contributed to these effects. Furthermore, live ratings of interviewees’ performance were higher than ratings based on recordings. Additionally, videoconference interviews induced more privacy concerns but were perceived as more flexible. Organizations should take the present results into account and should not use both types of interviews in the same selection stage., publishedVersion

This study aims to build on the understanding of social commerce in the emerging markets and how it influences online community engagement. The conceptual model was proposed using theories including the social support theory, the trust theory, the social presence theory, the flow theory and the service-dominant logic theory. Using Facebook online community, the data were collected from 400 respondents from Jordan and analysed using AMOS based structural equation modelling. Results revealed that social commerce constructs positively influence social support, community members’ trust and social presence. Furthermore, it was found that social support and social presence positively affect community members’ trust. We also found that community members’ trust positively influence flow whereas both community members’ trust and flow positively influence community engagement.

As with all fields of social sciences, open and distance learning studies frequently use self-reports in their collection of data. Similarly, as with all measurement tools, proof of construct validity through statistical processes is important for testing hypotheses based on the findings, making decisions, and essentially ensuring the tools and methods used are fit for purpose. During construct validity testing processes, the reporting of findings regarding measurement invariance of a scale is an important element that is often neglected. This study aims to portray the longitudinal invariance of the Social Presence Scale (Cakmak, Cebi & Kan, 2014), which is frequently used to determine the social presence in open and distance learning environments research and has confirmed construct validity in the literature, through repeated measurements obtained in an experimental study. This research was conducted on 280 learners in a 3-month interval. The data gathered was analyzed for measurement invariance using the Mplus 7.0 software package in accordance with the four stages described in the literature. The measurement invariance tested in each stage were studied for ΔCFI, and ΔRMSEA values in addition to likelihood chi-square. The findings indicate the conditions required for measurement invariance in each stage, or in other words, the longitudinal invariance of the scale was achieved. The findings of this study may provide a precedent for similar studies in the future.

Confronted with increasing digitalization, service firms are challenged to sustain customer loyalty. A promising means to do so is to leverage the digital presence of service employees on their website. A large-scale field study and several experimental studies show that the digital presence of service employees on the firm website increases current website service quality perceptions and positively shapes memories related to employee service quality perceptions from past service encounters. Both effects indirectly increase customer loyalty and, in turn, financial performance, and are amplified by employee accessibility and a service firm’s customer orientation. The authors examine further boundary conditions for the memory process: only service employees evoke the beneficial spillover effect to employee service quality perceptions, and the spillover effect does not generalize to evaluations of product quality. Remarkably, an employee’s digital presence, although factually unrelated, augments customer perceptions of service employees’ competence and commitment and thus strengthens rather than erodes service employees’ role in customer–firm relationships. Theoretical and managerial implications deepen the understanding of how to add a human touch to digital channels.

While open-cohort blended education programmes allow for accessible and flexible study trajectories, they may present social challenges to learners. Social presence is a possible a way of enhancing...

Communicating with customers through live chat interfaces has become an increasingly popular means to provide real-time customer service in many e-commerce settings. Today, human chat service agents are frequently replaced by conversational software agents or chatbots, which are systems designed to communicate with human users by means of natural language often based on artificial intelligence (AI). Though cost- and time-saving opportunities triggered a widespread implementation of AI-based chatbots, they still frequently fail to meet customer expectations, potentially resulting in users being less inclined to comply with requests made by the chatbot. Drawing on social response and commitment-consistency theory, we empirically examine through a randomized online experiment how verbal anthropomorphic design cues and the foot-in-the-door technique affect user request compliance. Our results demonstrate that both anthropomorphism as well as the need to stay consistent significantly increase the likelihood that users comply with a chatbot’s request for service feedback. Moreover, the results show that social presence mediates the effect of anthropomorphic design cues on user compliance.

Is our mental health at risk due to spending a significant amount of time online due to the COVID-19 pandemic? In the new era that we are living in, where we live a life that coexists with the virus, we are participating in video conferences held online rather than on-site in order to slow the spread of the virus. Video conferencing has become our necessity since March 2020, and is becoming a new standard, especially in the MICE industry. Recently, however, people who have excessively used video conference platforms are complaining of video conference fatigue, which is a new negative emotion such as stress, anxiety, and worry as well as general work fatigue. Therefore, this study focused on the mechanism of video conferencing in MICE, which is rapidly digitally converted by the virus, and the digital psychological factors of the participants. This study derived the quality attributes of video conferencing in MICE and empirically analyzed the relationship with digital psychological factors of the video conference participants, such as video conference fatigue, social presence, and flow. One hundred and thirty-eight valid questionnaires collected from participants of several international academic conferences held in EXCO, Daegu, Korea, from 23 to 28 May 2021, were analyzed. The main results are as follows. First, unlike general video conference fatigue, MICE video conference fatigue was not found to be related to the preceding and following variables. This is due to the characteristics of the MICE video conference and the expertise of the participants. Second, social presence was identified as an important variable in MICE video conferencing. Although media-mediated, the feeling of being present with the presenter and participants was found to affect the participants’ flow in the video conference. Third, in this study, the fun factor was identified as the most important video conference quality that can enhance the social presence of the video conference participants of MICEs.

This work has been partially funded by ED-DESPINA MICHAIL-300155-310200-3319 budget of the Cyprus University of Technology. Immersive virtual reality technologies are used in a wide range of fields such as training, education, health, and research. Many of these applications include virtual humans that are classified into avatars and agents. An overview of the applications and the advantages of immersive virtual reality and virtual humans is presented in this survey, as well as the basic concepts and terminology. To be effective, many virtual reality applications require that the users perceive and react socially to the virtual humans in a realistic manner. Numerous studies show that people can react socially to virtual humans; however, this is not always the case. This survey provides an overview of the main findings regarding the factors affecting the social interaction with virtual humans within immersive virtual environments. Finally, this survey highlights the need for further research that can lead to a better understanding of human–virtual human interaction.

วารสารปัญญาภิวัฒน์, 14, 2, 16-31

Emotional contagion is a pillar of social interaction. As such, it has immense potential to facilitate communication and improve collaboration. In the context of remote collaboration, it is especially important that working partners can build trust and a sense of cohesiveness. While digital media may complicate socio-affective communication, we argue that some media capabilities are better able to support processes of affective alignment. We define affective friction as an affective misalignment between the members of a workgroup that may result in diverging affective responses to shared experiences. We propose that affective friction is a central element of affective alignment and a driving force of creative collaboration. As a result, the capacity of a medium to make affective friction perceptible to working partners is essential for successful remote collaboration. We suggest a two-stage experimental design to test our hypotheses.

International audience; Collaborative serious games have proven to be effective learning environments to enhance the development of learners' soft skills, such as collaboration, negotiation and cooperation. To be effective, such role paying games should provide genuine interactions. However, little is known on how design choices, such as the viewpoint (either first or third person perspective), impact collaborative processes and learners' perception of their partners. This paper reports an exploratory study on the impact of the viewpoint on the sense of social presence, and on collaborative processes that emerge from learners' interactions in a collaborative serious game dedicated to soft skills training. To address this issue, learners played in either first-person or third-person perspective during a session of two games. Our results show that the first-person view allowed for a higher sense of social presence and increased information sharing. This seems to be mainly due to the knowledge asymmetry caused by the affordances of the environment, in other words design choices. These results can be applied in the design of collaborative serious games that support social interactions and collaborative skills training.

International audience

In this study, we delve into the perceived quality of recommendations provided by AI-based virtual service assistants (VSAs). Specifically, the role of the social presence of VSAs in influencing recommendation perceptions is investigated. We also explore how the social presence of a VSA is formed and how perceived anthropomorphism plays a vital role in shaping social presence and eventually instilling trust in VSAs among consumers. These relationships are examined in the context of online government services. The results indicate that consumer interaction with VSAs - manifesting via perceived anthropomorphism, social presence, dialog length, and attitudes - improves recommendation quality perceptions, which further instills trust in VSA-based recommendations. Perceived anthropomorphism was found to strongly influence the formation of social presence, whereas trust and recommendation quality - the outcomes of social presence - were found to be partially conditional on the dialog length and the degree of positive attitudes toward VSAs. The findings additionally suggest that a VSA can be considered a social actor that possesses the capability to bring a “human touch” to online services, therefore improving the overall online service experience. peerReviewed

Social interactions through social commerce platforms empower consumers to share their personal experiences with others, but its role becomes more significant for societal protection during COVID-19. Numerous scholars have studied e-commerce extensively, but there is a lack of studies to identify social commerce characteristics to attract potential consumers during COVID-19. This study aims to examine the role of social commerce constructs by integrating social presence as a moderator in the model to explain consumers online shopping intentions in a Pakistani context, where lack of trust on the reliability and validity of comments from other consumers being considered the growing concern toward the success of social commerce. The quantitative data were collected from the respondents living in different cities of Pakistan. Most of the hypothesis supported and demonstrate the positive response from the Pakistani consumers having experience in shopping through social commerce platforms. The findings of this study will help scholars and managers to understand the attitude of Pakistani consumers.