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The advancement of artificial intelligence and its diverse applications have attracted great interests from several research scholars examining communication between humans and chatbots. Many have explained the motivations of chatbot use, however, less emphasis has been given to myriad customer experiential needs for the interaction with this AI-powered technology. Therefore, in the light of U&G theory, this thesis presents a conceptual framework for customer experience as the needs for chatbot use. SOR model was also adopted to establish the links among customer experience as organisms (utilitarian - perceived informativeness and credibility; hedonic - perceived transparency, enjoyment and engagement; anthropomorphism - mindful and mindless anthropomorphism; and social presence), their primary stimuli (functionality, communication style similarity and aesthetics) and responses (customer satisfaction and reuse intention). 417 convenient samples were collected from the UK where chatbots are widely used. Results from SEM revealed that perceived credibility, informativeness, enjoyment, functionality and communication style similarity hold the keys for customer satisfaction, while effects of anthropomorphism and social presence are not significant in this research setting. This study has enriched U&G theory by addressing customer experience as ones' motivations to use chatbots. Also, it has presented a fresh understanding of customer experience in chatbot context by considering utilitarian, hedonic, anthropomorphism and social presence as dimensions of customer experience rather than merely measuring how customers think, feel, sense, act and relate. In addition, practical implications and direction for future research are discussed.

The independent style of scanning and payment at self-service checkouts (SCOs) has resulted in areas for concern. The reduction of employee involvement may reduce the social presence perceived at a SCO. Social presence is when a user experiences the perception that there is another intelligence or entity within their environment (Short, William & Christie, 1976). If customers are not influenced by the social presence of the employees at a SCO then it may affect their behaviour. Using a mixed methods approach, with a combination of qualitative and quantitative data gathering, this thesis investigated dishonest behaviours at self-service checkouts and the effects of a social presence on consumer behaviour. The overreaching research question then guiding this dissertation is: What effect does a social presence have on thefts at self-service checkouts and can social presence be effectively implemented via technology? Three exploratory qualitative (Studies 1-3) and two empirical studies (Studies 4-5) were conducted to investigate issues surrounding thefts at SCO with reference to social presence. Study 1 consisted of in-depth observations of customers within supermarkets to gain an understanding of everyday behaviours associated with self-service checkouts. Both customers and staff seemed to be frustrated at the amount of times the technology did not work properly and the customer would appear disadvantaged when they required assistance. With an understanding of the salient factors and behaviours associated with self-service checkouts, Study 2 then explored SCO staff perceptions of thefts at self-service checkouts (Creighton et al., 2015). Qualitative semi-structured interviews were used to investigate the perceived influence of social presence at self-service checkouts by staff and its perceived effect on dishonest customer behaviour. Twenty-six self-service checkout staff took part in a series of semi-structured interviews to describe customer behaviours with self-service. With respect to actual physical social presence, such as the recognised presence of an employee, staff reported that more customer thefts occurred when the self-service checkouts were busy and their social presence was reduced. To further explore social presence within a retail environment and validate the perceptions from SCO Staff, Study 3 investigated the role of the security guard in terms of their social presence and explored their perceptions of thefts at self-service checkouts. Interviews with 6 security guards were conducted to determine factors surrounding theft as their role is to monitor this type of dishonest behavior. There was an overall agreement from security guards that there were more thefts at self-service checkouts when the store was busy and that there were more thefts at self-service checkouts overall, compared to traditional manned checkouts. The first empirical study (Study 4), consisting of 2 Experiments, considered the effects of a social presence within a self-service checkout interface on user behaviour. This study examined whether a social presence in the form of a computer designed onscreen agent at a simulated SCO, with design features varying in ‘humanness’, i.e. agents that displayed more or less-human-like features (eyes in Experiment 1, and human shapes in Experiment 2), would have an effect on opportunistic behaviour (cheating) in a simulated checkout scenario. Ninety-one participants interacted with a simulated SCO while their eye movements were tracked via a Tobii TX300 eye-tracker. Hypotheses that predicted a social presence would receive attention and result in fewer instances of theft when integrated within an interface were supported, suggesting that implementing an agent designed to suggest some level of humanness e.g. with eyes, within a SCO interface may reduce levels of theft as customers are likely to notice it. However, Study 4 showed mixed results for the effects of varying agent appearance alone. Research has shown that social presence can also be induced by varying agent behaviour (Burgoon et al., 2000). Study 5 thus varied interactivity (i.e. personal vs impersonal nature) of the agent via voice implementation on the SCO, using the same agent as in Study 4 (Experiment 2). The research highlights the need for the current designs of SCO to be updated to reduce operational issues which could be contributing to thefts occurring at SCOs. It is also concluded that further research is needed on the effects of interactivity and agent presence during a SCO interaction to explore dimensions of social presence and how they are being experienced by the user, which may ultimately lead to a reduction in thefts at SCOs.

This thesis comprises a critical review and suggestions for enhancement of the Community of Inquiry Framework (CoIF), the frequently cited model of collaborative community-based online learning. It combines a systematic engagement of relevant literature and research, with the application of the CoIF thinking to six of my peer-reviewed publications. Although not initially conceived as forming part of a doctorate submission, these publications are drawn upon throughout this narrative, to assist my interrogation of the CoIF. They are also used to provide evidence of my continuing journey as an education researcher. This thesis is therefore not an exegesis – a traditional meta-narrative encompassing this candidate’s publications. It moves beyond my findings in the publications to create and present supplementary concepts, and develop pointed guidance about using the Framework in supporting online learning in tertiary education. My review first critically interrogates the three constituent elements or Presences of the CoIF. Social presence emerges as a highly complex and multi-faceted construct, in which the de-emphasising of the affective in the CoIF seems at variance with current research reporting the strong student emotional response to working online, and particularly in collaborative, community-based groupings. Then, in Cognitive presence, there has been little consideration of, and specificity about, reflection in the CoIF. My critique proposes that reflection and critical thinking are distinct but inter-related concepts; both of which need to be addressed. Teaching presence is renamed ‘Tutoring presence’ informed by my review based upon my emergent understandings of student-centred learning. Two enhancements to the CoIF are then proposed, together with the rationale for establishment of a Tutors’ Network. The first enhancement, referred to as 'the Influences,’ unites and enriches the individual Presences. The second argues for the existence and use of a personal learning retreat at the heart of a community of inquiry, addressing a perceived omission in the CoIF. This learner ‘space’ provides a ‘quiet, safe place’ for the private (internal) world of the learner, as a foil to the shared collaborative space in the CoIF (the external world). Finally, a Tutors’ Network is outlined as a vehicle for advancing their understandings and knowledge of online, collaborative, community-based learning in general, and in particular of communities of inquiry. This should develop the abilities of online tutors, improve their learners’ educational experiences and encourage research and scholarship into the CoIF.

Everyday face-to-face social interaction is increasingly being supplemented by computer- and video-mediated communication. With mediation, however, comes the potential loss of important non-verbal cues. It is therefore important to attempt to maintain the quality of the mediated interaction, such that it retains as many of the aspects of a real-world interaction as possible. Social presence is a measure of how similar a mediated interaction is to face-to-face, the most socially present situation, in terms of perceptions of and behaviour towards an interlocutor. Social presence can be mediated by many factors, one of which is mutual gaze, and social perceptions of an interlocutor are also thought to be related to task performance. For a successful interaction, therefore, an optimum amount of mutual gaze for maximising social presence and task performance is desirable. This research aims to investigate the relationship between mutual gaze, task performance and social presence, in order to discover the ideal conditions under which a successful mediated interaction can occur. Previous gaze research paradigms have involved one conversational partner staring continuously at the other, and the resulting mutual gaze being measured. It is hypothesised that this method may actually suppress mutual gaze, primarily due to social reasons. It is potentially, therefore, not the optimum experimental design for mutual gaze research. The first study in this thesis used eye-tracking to explore this hypothesis and investigate the relationship between mutual gaze and task performance. A suitable paradigm was developed, based on that used in previous research into eye movements and non-verbal communication. Two participants – Instruction Giver (IG) and Instruction Follower (IF) – communicated via avatars in Second Life to solve simple arithmetic tasks. There were two between-participant looking conditions: staring (the IG’s avatar stared continuously at the IF); and notstaring, (IG’s avatar looked at IF and task-relevant objects). Constant staring did, indeed, show evidence of decreasing mutual gaze within the dyad. Mutual gaze was positively correlated with task performance scores, but only in the not-staring condition. When not engaged in mutual gaze, the IF looked more at task-related objects in the not-staring condition than in the staring condition; this suggests that social factors are likely to be driving the gaze aversion in the staring condition. Furthermore, there are no task-related benefits to staring. The second study explored further how much looking by one person at another will maximise both mutual gaze and task performance between the dyad. It also investigated the relationship between mutual gaze, task performance and both manipulated and perceived social presence. Individual participants interacted with a virtual agent within the Second Life paradigm previously used in the human-human study. Participants were either told they were interacting with a computer (i.e. an agent) or another human (an avatar). This provided the between-participants manipulated social presence variable, or agency. The virtual agent was programmed to look at the participant during either 0%, 25%, 50% or 75% of the interaction, providing the within-participants variable looking condition. The majority of effects were found in the 75% looking condition, including the highest mutual gaze uptake and the highest social presence ratings (measured via a questionnaire). Although the questionnaire did not detect any differences in social presence between the agent and avatar condition, participants were significantly faster to complete the tasks in the avatar condition than in the agent condition. This suggests that behavioural measures may be more effective at detecting differences in social presence than questionnaires alone. The results are discussed in relation to different theories of social interaction. Implications and limitations of the findings are considered and suggestions for future work are made.

Social presence has long been considered to be a key factor in enhancing learning in online contexts (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000; Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997; Kehrwald, 2010; Ko, 2012; Tu, 2002b). New modes of online interaction, however, require researchers to engage in constant re-evaluation of social presence theory. This study set out to investigate online mediated interaction in the voice-based chat room and the text-based forum in the context of Chinese online education. The main aims were to compare the level of social presence generated using the two technological tools, to explore how learners form an online community and to contribute to theory in this area. A mixed-method approach was taken to investigate levels of social presence, drawing on data from 124 questionnaires, 96 postings of text messages and 3 hours and 12 minutes of voice messages collected from the text-based forum and the voice-based chat room and eight one-hour interviews with students, either individually or in pairs. The answers to the questionnaires were subjected to statistical analysis, the interactional data of both the text and voice messages were analysed using Rourke et al.’s (2001) categories and indicators of social presence while the interviews were transcribed and subjected to a more qualitative analysis. The statistical analysis of the questionnaires showed that students tended to use text to a much greater extent than voice, probably because of technical constraints, and that students’ perceptions of social presence in the two media were not significantly different. The analysis of the interactional data revealed that the density of social presence overall was slightly higher in the voice-based chat room than in the text-based forum, but the difference between the two media was not statistically significant. However, the density scores for the interactive category were shown to be significantly higher in the voice-based than in the text-based interaction, while the opposite was the case for the cohesive category. When affective categories were compared, text and voice data were not significantly different. As the voice-based chat room was synchronous and had the advantage of sound, students became more involved in the communication and thus a greater sense of community was created. As students developed closer relationships with each other, cohesive features could be dispensed with in the voice-based chat room, and this was why the text-based forum had a higher density of cohesive features. Voice-based interaction clearly enhances social presence and a community of learning. However, for technical reasons, it is currently recommended that students work in small groups for discussion activities and learners should have strong technical support. From a theoretical perspective, the study underlines the need for the constant renewal of analytical tools and categories in the face of rapidly evolving interactional practice online. The multi-media resources drawn upon by students may include social media as well as university platforms and the use of emoticons, special symbols, multiple punctuation, photos and video-clips – not to mention the use of avatars and virtual worlds, which have not been considered in the context of the current study.

This thesis investigates the design and use of communication technologies to support long distance dating relationships (LDDRs). We focus on using co-located behaviours that hold special relational meaning as the metaphor behind the design of devices to mediate between separated partners. Social Presence is used as the main theoretical construct through which support for LDDRs is addressed. Social Presence is a phenomenological concept which refers to “the degree of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal relationship” [Short et al., 1976, p. 65]. An additional concept, Closeness, is also brought in to the design problem to account for the supportive role of communication technologies between moments of synchronous contact. This thesis proposes three main arguments. The first is that individual acts of communication, through feelings of Social Presence, have an impact on a couple’s feelings of Closeness towards one another. We explore possible connections between Social Presence and Closeness through a diary study. The results of the diary study also establish that the selection of communication media impacts feelings of Social Presence. Our second argument is that a number of design facets, explored throughout the thesis, could enhance the design of communication technologies for LDDRs by increasing feelings of Social Presence. An analysis of current literature informs the development of seven prototype devices based on hand-holding, hugging, sharing notes and pillow talk. Two interview studies explore people’s reactions to these devices. The findings from these studies are integrated into a design space which describes some of the design decisions that should be considered when creating behaviour-based devices which aim to support LDDRs. Our third argument is that devices based on co-located behaviours support LDDRs through engendering high levels of SP. This is investigated through five case studies using the devices we previously developed, showing that three of our devices are associated with particularly high levels of SP. They also provide insights about the design space facets, as realised in the devices, through using the devices within couples’ existing communication routines. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how the results of these studies are of relevance to researchers interested in supporting long distance dating relationships. Our investigation into Social Presence provides two main contributions; firstly it offers an understanding of how various factors (including relationship type and distance) affect feelings of SP. Secondly, it demonstrates that increasing feelings of Social Presence can have a longer-term impact on LDDRs through increasing their feelings of Closeness towards one another. This suggests that SP is suitable concept to try and support through the design of communication technologies. In addition to informing our discussion of our design space, the case studies within this thesis highlight that devices based on co-located behaviours can help support LDDRs. Given the dearth of devices based on this metaphor, we suggest that other researchers may be interested in extending these findings by exploring other behavioural metaphors. The design space proposed within this thesis offers two main contributions. Firstly, designers can use the design space to foster innovation when creating new designs. Design spaces result in a descriptive and exploratory tool for designers creating new innovations. Secondly, the comprehensive consideration of the various dimensions, especially regarding our consideration of existing communication technologies, provides researchers with a novel design-centric view over the state of the art.

Recently, the numbers of Higher Education institutions that are using Web 2.0 technologies and social networking sites are increasing dramatically. These sites offer unique and diverse learning opportunities. There is evidence that a sense of community can be created online and that this community is connected with perceived learning. Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) introduced and developed the Community of Inquiry framework as a dynamic process model and a comprehensive framework to guide the research and practice of online learning communities, and to describe and measure elements supporting the development of these communities. This framework consists of three elements - social, teaching and cognitive presence - as well as categories and indicators to define each presence and guide the coding of transcripts. The categories of social presence are affective responses, open communication and group cohesion. The categories of teaching presence are instructional design and organisation, facilitating discourse and direct instruction. Previous studies suggest that a positive social climate on an online learning community is important as it can improve learning experience and cognitive presence. This study aims to explore and understand the nature of Community of Inquiry presences, in particular teaching presence and social presence. The aim of the study is to understand the influence of a different teaching presence on students’ development of social presence. This study provides a more comprehensive picture of developing students’ social presence over changing teaching presence in a social network environment in a Kuwaiti higher education context. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the following research questions are explored: 1- How does a students’ sense of social presence change with a different teaching presence in the social network environment within a Kuwaiti higher education context? a. Does a students’ sense of social presence (affective responses, open communication and group cohesion) change as a result of a different teaching presence (facilitating discourse - direct instruction) in the social network environment in a Kuwaiti higher education context? b. Why do participants maintain or change their social presence level during the course? 2- How does the use of teaching presence promote the development of students’ social presence in a Kuwaiti higher education context within the social network environment? The study was conducted in the second semester of 2010/2011 at The Education Technology Department - The College of Basic Education - The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), within the State of Kuwait. The study was carried out on the Educational Communication module and involved 46 male participants. This study uses the equivalent of mixed methods design to answer research questions. The sequential explanatory strategy is embedded within an applied quasi-experimental approach. Quantitative data is collected and analysed, which is then followed by the collection and analysis of qualitative data. The researcher used a messages analysis and a content analysis approach to reveal the level of social presence in an online community and then develop stimulated recall interview questions. A combination of individual interviews and focus group interviews were used. Garrison et al.’s (2000) social presence coding schemes were developed to make them more suitable in the study context. Quantitative and qualitative data show that there is no significant difference between the effects of facilitating discourse and direct instruction in terms of students’ social presence level. Stimulated recall interviews reveal that most participants cannot distinguish between facilitating discourse and direct instruction. The participants believe that facilitating discourse and direct instruction are similar. The participants’ responses lead the researcher to search for other motives that could promote the development of students’ social presence in the higher education context in the social network environment. The study concludes that there are two factors that could promote the development of students’ social presence. First, instructional design and organisation, such as web design satisfaction, network effect, instructor responsiveness, the nature of the task and awarding degrees. Second, learner-specific matters, such as previous experience, peer influence, friendship, attitude, self-esteem and self-confidence and something I refer to as the Wave Effect.

This study, adopting a case study approach with a group of beginning-level FFL (French as a foreign language) learners, investigated the possibility that initial level foreign language learners may acquire oral skills through synchronous CMC, and the impacts of synchronous CMC learning on their motivation, as well as their social presence. The participants were 12 FFL beginners in a Taiwanese university. Divided into three groups, they were required to conduct three tasks in three different learning environments (video/audio, audio and f2f) during an academic semester (18 weeks). The semester constituted cycles of three-week practices on those tasks. The contents of the tasks were inter-connected. Before each oral task, all the participants had to conduct the same task in synchronous text chat. The data for this study was collected from the participants’ performance in three oral tests held at the initial, middle and final phases of the study, their online chat records, interview transcriptions, learning journal, questionnaires completed at the beginning and the end of the study, and the instructor’s observation journal. The results suggest that these three CMC learning modes bring only partial benefits in terms of learners’ oral proficiency development. It is factors generated by the three learning environments, rather than the environments themselves, that have the largest impact on the learners’ oral proficiency development, learning motivation and attitudes towards the target language. However, the differences in the environments are reflected in particular in the learners’ perception of social presence.

Over many decades, vigilance research has consistently found that performance on vigilance tasks decline over time (i.e., the vigilance decrement; Davies & Parasuraman, 1982), and that performing a vigilance task is both mentally demanding and stressful (Warm et al., 2008). Researchers have subsequently implemented a wide range of interventions to both understand and attempt to attenuate the vigilance decrement and its associated affective effects. Among these efforts, little attention has been devoted to understanding the effects of the social environment on vigilance. Nonetheless, a handful of studies have indeed suggested that the presence of others can affect performance, workload, and stress in vigilance. The present dissertation sought to extend these findings by examining the effect of social support on vigilance, a novel form of social presence in vigilance research, based on findings that the provision of social support may improve performance on cognitive tasks. 236 participants were randomly assigned to complete a cognitive vigilance task either alone or in one of seven social presence conditions: supportive or non-supportive observer, supportive or non-supportive co-actor, independent co-actor, evaluative observer, or merely present observer. Regarding the novel supportive and non-supportive manipulations, results indicated that receiving non-supportive statements resulted in a more conservative response bias than supportive statements, but that receiving supportive statements resulted in higher perceived effort. Additionally, receiving statements from a co-actor, regardless of the type of statement, resulted in higher median response times. In comparing the novel manipulations to existing manipulations of social presence in vigilance, participants in the non-supportive observer condition outperformed those in the independent co-actor and mere presence conditions. The results of this dissertation thus imply that verbal interactions during vigilance tasks – and the supportive or non-supportive nature of those interactions – can affect performance and workload differently than non-verbal forms of social presence.

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to describe the experiences of instructor social presence and immediacy on student success for asynchronous online students at universities that offer asynchronous learning in Southern California. The theory guiding this study was Short’s theory of social presence, as it explains the real and present interaction that affects the saliency and interpersonal relationships of the participants. The methodology for this qualitative study followed a hermeneutical phenomenological design of 10 asynchronous online students enrolled in universities in Southern California. Data were collected using individual interviews, letter writing, and a focus group. The data analysis included a phenomenological reduction of data coding to identify common themes and trends. These themes and trends were compared and contrasted against outlying experiences and synthesized to identify merging themes. Three themes and six sub-themes emerged from the study. The three themes included quality of instructor-student interaction, socialization and connectedness with instructors and peers, and effectiveness of online learning. Findings from this study will help current and future asynchronous online instructors use social presence and immediacy to improve students’ academic success.

This qualitative research study explored levels of social presence in Second Life (virtual world) associated with phases of knowledge construction. The study explored images and data collected from users at two discussion-based activities. The findings revealed the three levels of social presence, according to the Interactional Process Model of Social Presence developed by Schultze and Brooks. Social presence established a sense of mutual monitoring of users that increased users’ sense of presence. This made their virtual interactions more real. Various phases of knowledge construction were observed as specified in the Interaction Analysis Model developed by Gunawardena, Lowe and Anderson. Knowledge construction indicated users shared information and negotiated meaning together. The findings showed Second Life can support users’ experiences of higher levels of social presence and knowledge construction. This association provides insights for designing curriculum in virtual worlds, implying that collaborative activities with perceived availability for social interaction may lead to higher levels of knowledge construction.

Affective state visualizations can influence social interaction in digital games, and analyzing such visualizations could help game designers to identify avenues for enhancement, leading to more engaging gameplay. Facial expressions can be used to detect affective state in real-time which can then be projected to the player in-game. Previous work has shown that representations of facial expressions in the form of emojis in a two-player car racing game improves player experience. However, its use in multiplayer first-person shooters, where the full attention of the player is needed at every moment of gameplay, remains largely unexplored. Improving on past work, we explore emoji as an affect representation in multiplayer FPS games. In addition, we introduce a novel diegetic representation of affect, and compare it with the emoji. Our user study with 18 participants shows that while emojis can be distracting, they are also enjoyable and easy to interpret. Our diegetic representation shows promise as a strategic game mechanic, but a more in-depth analysis is necessary to fully understand its potential. We further analyze their impact on social presence and find significant improvements in empathy and behavioral engagement for emojis. Our findings highlight the potential use of physiological representations as a non-verbal form of communication in virtual spaces, such as multiplayer games.

This dissertation proposes a novel definition of anonymity, drawing on past definitions as well as psychological theory, to propose that pseudonymous identities can have a complex and nuanced influence in emphasizing certain personality traits when used in online discussion. This dissertation connects this definition to the Proteus Effect — the observation that individuals adopt behavior stereotypical of the avatars they use in virtual worlds (Yee & Bailenson, 2007) — to test how the presence and character of avatars in an online instant messenger influences aggression during political discussions. A 2x2 factorial experiment is used to evaluate participant aggression following small group deliberations between groups of participants assigned aggressive and unaggressive usernames and avatars, as well as accounts displaying an avatar and username vs only a username. A follow-up online experiment is used to show that similar effects of identity on behavior can be achieved simply by assigning participants to participate in similar tasks as moderators or as themselves.

Online education, also referred to as distance education, has been on a steady rise for over a decade, and California community colleges offer more online courses than any other public higher education institution. Although the success gap, as measured by course completion, between online and face-to-face learning is closing overall, online courses, specifically in California community colleges, continue to have lower success rates than the traditional in-person classes; furthermore, this disparity is exacerbated for students of color. One aspect that has been researched in this instructional modality has been the impact of social presence, or “the degree to which online participants feel connected to one another” (Whiteside, 2017, p. 4) in online courses. In addition, research specifically focused on community college students of color highlights the relational domain of teaching and learning as the foundation for success (Wood & Harris, 2015). This qualitative study sought to understand and amplify the experiences of students of color in online courses. This study utilized a dual-lens conceptual framework, which merged the Social Presence Model (Whiteside, 2015) with the Pyramid of Student Success for Men of Color in the Community Colleges (Wood and Harris, 2015). Together, they provided complementary lenses to examine how students of color experienced social presence in online courses, and how such experience related to their perceptions of feeling connected to the learning community and supported towards success in their online learning.Eleven study participants were interviewed in one-on-one semi-structured Zoom interviews. Thematic analysis revealed five main themes, including the magic of human connection, the importance of a warm welcome, the value of student-to-student interaction, the significance of instructor presence, and the clarity of content presentations. The findings give a window into the experiences of students of color in online courses, and implications include ways faculty and leaders can improve the online experiences for students of color and seek to close the gap between face-to-face and online learning.

The three research papers completed and compiled to make up this dissertation explore the relationship between social presence and social construction of knowledge in asynchronous online discussion forums in higher education courses in the instructional technology field. Paper 1 is a literature review of the interaction analysis model (IAM) (Gunawardena et al., 1997) as a methodology, which is used to measure and determine the social construction of knowledge in online discussion forums. This literature review identified and highlighted the need to determine how the social environment of online learning influences the social construction of knowledge. This led to the second paper where one aspect of the social environment of online learning, social presence, was examined in relation to social construction of knowledge. The purpose of Paper 2 was to explore whether there is a significant relationship between social presence and social construction of knowledge utilizing a correlational study. This study utilized a Spearman Correlation Coefficient to determine whether there is a relationship between the social presence score of a single discussion post and the five phases of knowledge construction specified in the IAM. The Spearman Correlation Coefficient (r = 0.431, p > .001) indicated a positive moderate statistically significant relationship between the social presence score and highest IAM phase of a single discussion post. This study purported the need to further examine the relationship between social presence and social construction of knowledge in Paper 3. Paper 3 focused on determining whether social presence can be utilized as a predictor of the IAM phase of a discussion post in an online discussion forum in higher education courses. The results of the combined content analysis found that social presence can be used to significantly predict social construction of knowledge. An ordinal logistic regression was run to predict the five phases of the IAM from the social presence score of a single discussion post. Social presence was a statistically significant predictor of social construction of knowledge and the study produced a significant (p > .001) ordinal logistic regression model. Ordinal logistic regression highlights the need for further research into analyzing how social presence lexicon analysis and the interaction analysis model can be used to enhance the research field’s understanding the social environment of online learning. This study helps to fill this research void by analyzing the ability of social presence to predict social construction of knowledge in a specific and well-defined context for online education.

People are increasingly turning to online communities for entertainment, information, and social support, among other uses and gratifications. Online communities include traditional online social networks (OSNs) such as Facebook but also specialized online health communities (OHCs) where people go specifically to seek social support for various health conditions. OHCs have obvious health ramifications but the use of OSNs can also influence people's mental health and health behaviors. The use of online communities has been widely studied but in the health context their exploration has been more limited. Not only are online communities being extensively used for health purposes, but there is also increasing concern that the use of online communities can itself affect health. Therefore, there is a need to better understand how such technologies influence people's health and health behaviors. The research in this dissertation centers on examining how online community use influences health and health behaviors. There are three studies in this dissertation. The first study develops a conceptual model to explain the process whereby the characteristics of a request from an OHC user for social support is answered by a wounded healer, who is a person leveraging their own experiences with health challenges to help others. The second study investigates how algorithmic fairness, accountability, and transparency of an OSN newsfeed algorithm influence the users' attitudes and beliefs about childhood vaccines and ultimately their vaccine hesitancy. The third study examines how OSN social overload, through OSN use, can lead to psychological distress and received social support. The research contributes theoretical and practical insights to the literature on the use of online communities in the health context.

The impact of social media on everyday life is undeniable. Social media has transcended its initial purpose of connectivity and branched into other sociocultural aspects. Educators must create a rich and active learning environment where students can actively engage with their educational curriculum. This study used a mixed methods approach to investigate the influence that learning management systems (LMS) and microblogging (social media) have on key elements of distance education design. These elements include social presence, sense of community, and overall user interface design. Students’ perceptions of these elements were collected from students enrolled in a graduate course during summer and fall 2020 by completing an adapted survey instrument built from previous scholarship. Data was analyzed quantitatively using non-parametric statistical testing. Qualitatively, instructors of record were asked a series of semi-structured interview questions that were analyzed using In Vivo, Values, and Pattern coding.

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study is to describe the lived experience of mathematics anxiety for self-described math-anxious students who completed an undergraduate mathematics course online at a university in the Pacific Northwest part of the United States. The theory guiding this study is community of inquiry (COI) introduced by early pragmatist philosophers C. S. Peirce and John Dewey and further developed by D. Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson, and Walter Archer as mathematics anxiety is a learned behavior based on students’ experiences. This research study answers the central research question: What are the lived experiences of mathematics anxiety for self-described math-anxious college students who completed a mathematics course online? Data was collected from a purposeful, criterion sample of 10 self-described math-anxious students who have completed an online mathematics course. Data collection methods included questionnaires, individual interviews, and focus group meetings. Data analysis followed a systematic procedure that included epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative variation, and synthesis. Three themes emerged from this research: teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. The findings revealed how self-described math-anxious students who completed an online undergraduate math class experienced math anxiety due to a lack of understanding of the concepts taught through gaps in prior knowledge or the inability to connect new concepts. Further research is needed regarding math anxiety and other factors to include (a) later in life diagnosis or misdiagnosis of conditions that challenge learning, (b) fear of asking for help, (c) social connection with other students, and (d) addressing math anxiety in the online math classroom.

Social interaction among learners plays a significant role in online learning environments (Garrison, 2006; Kreijns et al., 2014; Mykota, 2017). The construct of social presence in online courses is important because it influences interaction and connectedness among learners and its effects on their learning outcomes and emotional well-being. Social presence at its essence refers to how an individual is perceived as a "real person" in an online environment (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). Online students must decide what aspects of their social identities they share in their interactions with their peers and instructors. Furthermore, LGBTQ+ students must negotiate what aspects of their sexual orientations or gender identities they wish to self-disclose while taking online classes. In the past, research has explored how LGBTQ+ individuals use social media and online resources to negotiate their online social identities. Members of the LGBTQ+ community have used online platforms to explore their identity, facilitate the coming out process, and as a means of social support with other members of the community and its allies. However, LGBTQ+ perspectives regarding online social presence and self-disclosure in online learning environments are unknown. The purpose of this single qualitative case study was to explore LGBTQ+ college students' perceptions of social presence and its indicators, affective expression, open communication, and group cohesion in online courses related to their decisions surrounding self-disclosure. Data collection occurred through recorded participant interviews on Zoom. The interviews used semi-structured, open-ended questions created by the researcher. Interview recordings were transcribed and analyzed to uncover LGBTQ+ participants' perceptions of social presence and the factors that influenced their decisions related to self-disclosure. Their responses were coded and categorized using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) and social identity theory (SIT) as theoretical frameworks. The study's findings showed that the lack of collaborative and interactive activities in online classes that promote social presence left participants uncertain about how they perceived their classmates and how they may have been perceived by them. Participants described their experiences in online classes as lacking a sense of belonging and authentic connection. Furthermore, participants were reluctant to share personal information in the initially limited exchanges with their classmates. Participants' decisions to self-disclose information related to their gender identity and sexual orientation were based on factors like privacy, perceived social and political climate, and openness in professional and personal lives. Participants suggested that creating safe online spaces may reduce barriers to self-disclosure through instructors identifying as allies, sharing pronouns, and displaying symbols associated with support of the LGBTQ+ community. Further research is warranted for LGBTQ+ students' perceptions of social presence in online classrooms where their identities have been affirmed through institutional and environmental support.

This time has been called the "Golden Age" of podcasting. The number of people listening to podcasts continues to grow year after year as the medium itself continues to evolve. The ability to target specific, or niche, audiences is one reason why podcasting is so attractive to consumers. This also makes podcasts useful for small businesses. Like podcasts, small businesses can target niche audiences and cater to specific needs. The purpose of this project was to investigate the benefits of podcast marketing as it pertains to the uncertainty reduction theory and to create a podcast that can serve as a guide for small businesses that want to create a podcast to generate brand awareness.

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to describe 13 students’ experiences of college professor communication in asynchronous online courses at a large urban community college in central North Carolina. The focus was to answer the central research question of how online students describe communication experiences in an online college learning environment. The theories guiding this study were Knowles’ (1980) theory of adult learning- andragogy, and Short, Williams, and Christie’s (1976) social presence theory, as they correlated the need for professor communication with adult learning and social presence since communication can impact academic success for adult learners. To collect data, interviews and focus groups were conducted, and written journals were collected (Creswell & Poth, 2018, Moustakas, 1994). These three methods were incorporated to gather rich information from multiple sources. For analysis, Moustakas’s (1994) methods for transcendental phenomenology for data analysis were used. The four processes used were epoche, transcendental phenomenological reduction with the use of horizontalization (listing each expression related to the experience), imaginative variation, and synthesis of meanings. This data analysis involved examining significant themes and statements that reflected commonalities among all lived participant experiences in a simplified way (Moustakas, 1994). Results of this study impacted online learning by providing college professors with comments on online communication trends that positively and negatively impacted student course experiences.

Low engagement has been a longstanding problem in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). However, engagement is crucial in social learning contexts to increase knowledge construction and achieve meaningful learning outcome. To further understand learners’ engagement in MOOC discussion forums, this study focuses on the perspective of social presence, which is defined as learners’ ability to project themselves socially and emotionally in a community of inquiry. Social presence is an important factor that has the potential to affect learners’ learning experience and outcome. This study took place in the context of a professional development MOOC in the field of journalism. The discussion posts, system log data and survey responses were collected and analyzed. The purpose of this study is to understand the learners’ participation patterns in the discussion forums over the six modules of the MOOC, and the relationship between learners’ social presence, their positions in the learner network and their learning outcomes. In terms of data analysis, this study adopted a mixed-method approach to examine the data from both qualitative and quantitative aspects: to qualitatively analyze the posts, a machine learning supported text classification model was developed and applied to automatically analyze the large-scale text data in the forums; social network analysis (SNA) was used to analyze the characteristics of the learner network and determine learners’ centrality (degree, closeness, betweenness and Eigen centrality). Centrality is an important measure because prior studies found it to be an important predictor of learning outcome. Correlation analyses were used to discern the relationship between social presence and learners’ centrality, while regression models were built to investigate how learners’ social presence and posting behaviors (frequency of posting, average length of posts and day of posting) predict learners’ network centrality. Finally, correlation analyses were conducted to understand the association between learners’ network centrality and their certificate status, perceived learning and satisfaction. The purpose of using mixed methods is to see in what ways the qualitative nature of the posts and learners’ posting behaviors impact learners’ positions and influence in the learning community and their learning outcomes. The findings revealed the evolvement of the learner network in relation to the distribution of social presence throughout the MOOC. The results also showed that social presence indicators such as Complimenting others, Expressing agreement, Expressing gratitude and Disagreement/doubts/criticism play important roles in learners’ centrality in the learner network. Beside social presence, frequency of posting has strong effect in predicting learners’ network centrality, while other factors such as the average length of posts and the timing of posting have marginal impact in the prediction. Finally, this study found that learners’ network centrality is correlated with their certificate status as well as their overall satisfaction with the MOOC, but not correlated with their perceived learning in the MOOC. This study is among the first efforts in MOOC research to examine the relationship between social presence, learners’ network centrality and learning outcomes. It provides a critical ground for studying content-related interaction and learning community in MOOC forums. The findings inform MOOC learners in terms of how to strategically present themselves in the discussion forums to increase the possibilities of peer interaction and achieve productive learning outcomes. For examples, findings suggest that learners may obtain more central position in the community by posting more compliments, expressing more gratitude, and communicating agreement and disagreement, doubts etc. While for MOOC instructors, this study will potentially inform them how to effectively mediate the discussions and improve learner engagement as a facilitator, such as paying attention to the changes of learner network, identifying central learners, monitoring learners’ affective states.

The purpose of this study was to provide a phenomenological description of peer interaction and to explore the sense of community experienced by online learners in an accelerated online course delivered asynchronously. Though research indicates the importance of peer interaction and community in online learning, and online learners indicate their desire to feel a sense of community in online courses, there is a gap in literature that qualitatively details the essence of peer interaction and online learners’ perception of community. To address this gap, I interviewed six post-traditional online learners regarding their experiences interacting with peers and the way those experiences contributed to their sense of community in an accelerated online course. Five main themes emerged based on participants’ experiences and perceptions: (1) Routine, (2) Technology, (3) Course Design, (4) Perceptions of Interaction, (5) Sense of Community. The findings represented throughout this research align with the two research questions that guided this study: (1) How do students describe their experiences interacting with peers in an accelerated online course? (2) How do students describe their experiences of interacting with peers as contributing to their sense of community in an accelerated online course? This research contributes to a deeper understanding of factors that shape peer interaction and the sense of community felt in an accelerated online learning context. The findings evidence implications for online pedagogy, learning management systems, and for the implementation of the Community of Inquiry framework. Future research that focuses on the experiences and perceptions of online learners who share similar or different demographic characteristics through various methods would enhance understanding of peer interaction and community in online learning contexts. The need for such research is evident as diverse student populations’ exposure to learning through distance, online, and remote modalities continue to increase.

The usage of avatars in virtual worlds has been growing in recent years. However, the top motivations for avatar creation have changed with today’s generation of game players. Using Functional Attitude Theory and Warranting Theory, this study explores the relationships among trust, deception, social presence, game enjoyment, and the intention to befriend within a multiplayer video game. This study tests these variables in two conditions, Known and Unknown player partners, where players’ offline age and gender are exposed to their partners or remain anonymous. Results show there is a positive relationship between social presence and game enjoyment, game enjoyment and intention to befriend, and social presence and intention to befriend. Similar to past literature, this study supports the notion that there is a significant difference of social presence between the known and unknown player partners

This study explores the key factors that influence consumer intention to use virtual assistants for online shopping. It examines (a) whether existing concepts in communication technology literature (particularly message interactivity and social presence) are applicable to understanding consumer responses to virtual assistants and (b) the mediating role of social presence which influences intention to use virtual assistant technology for online shopping. Results showed that individuals who had more back-and-forth conversations with Alexa reported higher perceptions of message interactivity and greater feelings of social presence. Feelings of social presence mediated the effect of message interactivity on attitude to use and it also mediates intention to use. The current study provides several theoretical and practical implications to communication technology and consumer research and gives suggestions for future study of artificial intelligence

This study explored the almost 20-year-old Community of Inquiry (CoI) social presence construct through faculty’s perspectives and practices of their online teaching. Social presence has many CoI-identified characteristics, but overall it is the ability of a student to project their persona into the classroom. The preponderance of investigation has been on the other two CoI constructs, teaching and cognitive presences. Questions have arisen whether social presence is even necessary or achievable in online learning. This research was to provide more insight on the importance of online social presence and its characteristics in the online learning environment. The investigation invited faculty of a Midwestern university who teach solely online courses to share their perspectives on and practices supporting social presence. Methodology employed was inquiry-based, qualitative research utilizing survey and interview questionnaires. The sample consisted of 62 survey respondents and six interviewees. Data and information gathered were survey respondents’ demographics, type and sizes of courses they taught, and responses to qualitative and Likert-scaled questions, as well as interviewees’ qualitative responses. These findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and qualitative information review to find patterns to help answer the research questions. From the survey data, significant Pearson Correlations were present related to very small (less than 21 students) and very large classes (over 80 students). Most social presence CoI characteristics were rated at least important to extremely important by over 50% of the faculty responses. Only two characteristics rated mostly somewhat important or not important. From the survey and interview responses, patterns arose that social presence is contextually important and can be impacted by class size, instructor course design, the course level (undergraduate versus graduate), subject matter, student’s self-regulate learning, and the amount of time and resources allotted to the instructor. A few survey responses stated that social presence is not at all important. Interviewees relayed that online social presence can be just as important as it is in face-to-face courses for learning outcomes. This investigation warrants more social presence research regarding class size and level, subject matter, institutional supports, instructor course design, student self-learning abilities, and CoI construct-to-construct impacts.

This study examined students’ perceptions of teaching, social, and cognitive presence in an online, asynchronous mastery course as they related to interaction and student course satisfaction. The study design used structural equation modeling to examine the relationships. Data was collected from 166 students who were enrolled in an asynchronous online mastery course, which covered information technology literacy skills. The study was conducted over three years using a questionnaire built upon three previously validated instruments: The Community of Inquiry (CoI) Survey (Arbaugh, Cleveland-Innes, Diaz, Garrison, Ice, Richardson, & Swan, 2008), The Noel-Levitz Priorities Survey for Online Learners (Ruffalo Noel-Levitz, 2016) and the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (Walker & Fraser, 2005). The results of the study included a confirmatory factor analysis and a structural equation model. Results showed that students’ perception of teaching presence had the strongest positive direct effect on student course satisfaction, while cognitive presence was not a significant predictor of course satisfaction. Cognitive presence was a significant positive predictor of interaction. Social presence had a positive effect on interaction, however interaction was not a significant predictor of course satisfaction. In addition, results showed that as students’ perception of social presence increased, their reported course satisfaction decreased. The results of this research enhance the understanding of how the interdependent relationships between teaching, social, and cognitive presence affect one another. This study adds to the literature on asynchronous online learning, mastery-type courses, can serve as a model for analyzing and improving online course design and implementation, and may be used for future research and development in similar contexts.

The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the role of social presence in a professional online conference. This study explored how presenters and attendees convey social presence and how might it influence their conference experience. The participants were presenters and attendees registered for the 21st Annual Teaching Colleges and Community Worldwide Online Conference (TCC Conference), a completely online event that occurred in Spring 2016. Without presenters and attendees being physically at the venue, how do presenters and attendees construct and convey social presence to build a learning community? The current surge of research to understand online pedagogy and learning has targeted the virtual classroom while few studies have been conducted on social presence in online conferences. This multiple case study involved both qualitative and quantitative data using linguistic inquiry and word count, transcript content analysis, constant comparison analysis, a survey and interviews, grounded in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) theory for studying online learning experiences. Ultimately, the study revealed that social presence was manifested in the volume and patterns of interaction in a professional online conference and can be studied using the CoI framework’s social presence category. This was evident in the data gathered using multiple methods to observe and analyze what occurred during the 2016 TCC Conference and perceived experiences after the conference. Attendees projected themselves socially and affectively as well as formed perceptions of other attendees and presenters as ‘real people.’ For attendees, this was demonstrated by the way messages were posted in the chat box and how others interpreted those messages as well as how attendees interacted with each other and with the presenter using chat discussions. For the presenters, this was demonstrated by how they presented their content, how they interacted with attendees, what they did and what they said to engage attendees in the sessions within the context and tools limited to the computer mediated environment. The results of this study suggest that social presence can be established in a shorter time frame than previously thought possible compared to online courses conducted over a semester or term. Presenters and attendees participating in online presentations lasting 20 to 45 minutes were able to project observable instances of social presence. Other variables, such as presenter presence, content and delivery, attendee-presenter interaction, social media and previous relationships may have played varying roles in how social presence was established and maintained in a fully online professional conference.

Social television combines traditional television viewing and interactions with social media to create a phenomenon that connects otherwise autonomous viewers through a shared viewing experience. This dissertation explores one type of social television: on-screen user-generated comments. Although the practice spans multiple television genres, little is known about its effect on viewers’ cognitive processing of the media, perceptions of the social presence of other viewers, or the viewers’ experience of the media. Two experimental studies explored the effects of on-screen user-generated comments on cognitive processing of the media message, the effect of manipulating the content of on-screen user-generated comments and individual differences on perceptions of social presence, and how the perception of social presence affected both the viewing experience (i.e., enjoyment of and engagement in the television show) and cognitive processing. Results revealed that depending on the television material, on-screen user-generated comments either deter or enhance cognitive processing of the television content. Further, on-screen user-generated comments strengthen perceptions of social presence, while individual differences had little effect on that perception. Lastly, perceptions of social presence had an indirect positive effect on the relationship between on-screen user-generated comments and viewer experiences in one video stimulus, and an indirect negative effect on cognitive processing in the other video stimulus. These findings suggest that, while on-screen user-generated comments bring the ‘socialness’ back to television watching, they may be beneficial or detrimental based on the producer’s intent for the program.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the preferences of online students for technology-based learning environments (TBLEs) as influenced by the level of social presence in the online courses the participating students have taken. This investigation was centered around utilizing TBLEs and methods for establishing social presence in online classes (MESPOC) survey instruments to obtain the preferences of current online students at public university in the state of Texas. This study assumed a qualitative research structure comprising analysis of the data obtained on the TBLE and MESPOC instruments followed by semi-structured interviews with some of the survey participants. The results of the studies indicated that an individual’s preferred online learning environments impacted satisfaction in an online course. Moreover, the study, also explored the students’ preferences when it comes to the organization and facilitation of online courses.

With continued surges in enrollment in the various online health science programs, especially nursing programs, there is a great need for additional research to be conducted regarding how students perceive their professors social presence in an online learning environment through the use of Computer-Mediated Communications - CMCs. The objectives of this descriptive phenomenological qualitative study were to: 1) illustrate how students perceive their professors’ social presence as used in various types of CMCs; 2) identify emotions which the students have experienced in response to their professor’s CMCs; 3) unveil common themes regarding student perception of their professors’ social presence; and 4) identify ways for professors to increase their social presence in the online learning environment per the recommendations of the students. Garrison, Anderson and Archer’s (2000) definition of social presence was provided to participants so they would understand the context of this term throughout the interview process. Colaizzi’s (1978) method for phenomenological analysis was used to extract and analyze data. This study yielded four main themes, which include: responsiveness and interactions; caring and supportiveness; emotions and feelings; and connectedness and cohesiveness. Each of these four themes is interrelated and would allow for professors to increase their social presence when utilizing one or more of those modalities. Although this study’s findings were consistent with previous studies on social presence in the online learning environment, more research is needed to determine which CMCs are most meaningful to students in promoting professor social presence.Keywords: descriptive phenomenology; social presence; professor; Computer-Mediated Communications (CMCs); online health science courses; nursing; interaction

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATIONThe Struggle is Real: Student Perceptions of Quality in Online Courses using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) FrameworkbyBarbara TaylorDoctor of Education in Educational LeadershipUniversity of California, San Diego, 2016California State University, San Marcos, 2016Carolyn Huie Hofstetter, ChairCalifornia is in an educational drought and is facing a “college deficit” of college graduates. By 2030, it is anticipated that California will have a 1.1 million shortage of college-educated workers (Diaz, 2015). The struggle is real for people who want to get into college and for those who are in college trying to complete their higher education degree. As learners progress through the higher education system, various obstacles may happen in their lives to derail and divert their path to degree completion. To fulfill that desire, an increasing number of students are taking online courses and/or participating in online degree programs. The number of students taking online courses has increased for the 13th consecutive year (Allen & Seamans, 2016). This puts tremendous pressure on higher education faculty and administrators to demonstrate that online courses are equal to or better than face-to-face courses in terms of quality and student success due to the scrutiny about the quality of online courses by faculty, students, administrators, accrediting bodies, and legislatures.One of the ways to examine the quality of instruction is to evaluate levels of social, teaching, and cognitive presence in online courses. Using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, this study looked at the perceptions of quality from the student viewpoint. The literature review revealed there is little research that looks at quality through the lens of a student. This is the first study to investigate all three elements of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework operationalized through the California State University (CSU) Quality Online Learning and Teaching (QOLT) instrument. The survey instrument measures undergraduate student perceptions of social, teaching, and cognitive presence in addition to accessibility, technology, and user support elements. The data from the 113 participants matriculating at a mid-sized, four-year university indicate that undergraduate students perceived the courses with all three elements of social, teaching, and cognitive presence to be high quality courses. The data from a single undergraduate instructor illustrates the importance of developing student-focused courses with social, teaching, and cognitive presence. Limitations, implications, and areas for future research are presented.

In 1975, Weinberg (2001) first posed the challenging question that we, as educators, are unfortunately still struggling to answer: Why are we so unable to anticipate the second order effects of the first order victories of science and technology? Forty years later, education is still struggling to identify and address the second order effects of the technological changes that exploded around 1995 with the advent of the worldwide web. Faculty still struggle with rapid technological developments. Students desire greater flexibility with online learning and seek learning that embeds the technological formats they use in their day-to-day lives. Institutions of higher education grapple to meet the demand for more online courses, as well as to resolve the challenges that online learning poses at the institutional level. The field of education is still wondering where online learning fits with more traditional pedagogical designs. One aspect of online learning that has come into the recent limelight is the topic of social presence. Currently, the term social presence is thrown around as a panacea for a variety of online learning design problems. Unfortunately, the topic of social presence is fraught with ambiguity and controversy. Educational researchers define and measure social presence in a multitude of ways, which makes its application all the more problematic. This debate is happening at the same time as instructors and instructional designers work to implement strategies to increase social presence in online courses, seeking to use it as way to address the challenges that online learning brings to current learning environments. This study examines the topic of social presence by harkening back to its original conception: a consilience of psychological closeness and technology modality. The study begins with a literature review, including aspects of immediacy and use of technology in online learning, and ends with a call to the field of education in creating online course design in the years ahead.

This dissertation examined how an asynchronous video reflection tool impacted learners’ perception of social presence and their feeling of community in an online learning environment. More than ever before learning in postsecondary education takes place online through computer mediated communication, as almost all colleges and universities offer some of their courses online (Moore & Kearsley, 2012). There are many benefits of online learning (Graham, 2006; Griffiths & Graham, 2009b; Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, & Archer, 2001), but there are problems as well. One of the problems students can have while learning online is the feeling of isolation and the lack social presence with others (Ali & Leeds, 2009; Borup, West, & Graham, 2012; Rovai, 2002). To help mediate this problem, instructors use different online technologies that encourage learners to communicate in a variety of ways, including through video and visual media. There are many video-based tools available and many are newly in development; this study examines one in particular called Flipgrid that can be used by instructors and students to create and share video-based reflections on course content. The purpose of this study is to help online instructors, instructional designers and educational app developers find new ways of enhancing or increasing social presence for their target audience by exploring the following research questions: (1) How does an asynchronous video reflection tool impact students’ perception of social presence in an online class? (2) How does seeing classmates’ video recordings influence students’ feeling of community in an online class? And (3) How does creating video recordings influence students’ feeling of community in an online class? This interpretive case study (Stake, 1995) was informed by the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) and utilized qualitative methods for data collection and inductive data analysis to understand the phenomenon of social presence and how learners experienced it while using an asynchronous video reflection tool. Data was collected from students from five separate undergraduate courses that took place fully online. Analysis of qualitative surveys, focus group, and individual interviews revealed three themes from the data: familiarization, authenticity, and distractions. Participants expressed that getting to know classmates by seeing and hearing them in an online course was important to them, and authentic videos in which students shared personal stories to support their points of views were highly valued. There were also distracting elements, like privacy concerns and the feeling of being rushed while doing recording, that negatively impacted the experience of recording and watching video reflections. Based on the findings of this study, a refined definition of social presence is proposed.

Social presence has drawn great attention in the last three decades. A large number of studies attempted to prove that social presence exerted an effect on distance learning through including more interaction. This integrative review provided a comprehensive summary of current studies on social presence, identified problems in measuring social presence, and evaluated the effects of social presence on learning. Data were collected from 189 social presence studies in the area of distance education from 1976 to 2012. Data were analyzed qualitatively followed by a quantitative meta-analysis. This study revealed that social presence was still illusive and difficult to define. Due to its ambiguity, many doubts exist related to the measurement of social presence. The results of this study suggest future researchers should be cautious when advocating the importance of social presence in distance learning.

Abstract: In the online classroom, students often find themselves in front of a computer, looking at a bright screen, interacting with classmates and teachers through a keyboard and a mouse, and in some cases, listening to and watching someone that is not physically present with them. Some researchers claim that students may feel socially isolated if they are geographically distant from their classmates and teachers, resulting in a lack of engagement and motivation, and subsequently poor academic achievement. And so we may begin to wonder, is it possible for students experience meaningful moments of engagement in online classrooms? And if so, what is the nature of student engagement online and how might it differ qualitatively from face-to-face classroom interactions? Drawing on phenomenology of practice (van Manen, 2014), in this study I explore what it is like for students to experience a sense of closeness to others in an online learning environment. The aim of this research is to bring attention to the ways some students may share close and personal experiences with their classmates and teachers in online pedagogical spaces, despite the possible technological constraints in such settings.

The purpose of this study was threefold. First, it sought to conceptually compare two constructs that have numerous similarities, social presence and mediated immediacy. Second, it attempted to empirically test the relationship between those constructs after determining that the conceptual similarities suggested an overlapping relationship. Third, the study sought to determine if aspects of the communicative message, such as the type of target or level of interactivity, influenced how socially present or immediate an individual perceived that message to be. Confirmatory factor analyses, independent groups t-tests, and ANCOVAs were utilized to test the research questions that were posed. The results indicated no uniform effect of target or interactivity on ratings of social presence and mediated immediacy. Additionally, the confirmatory factor analysis pointed toward the independent relationship proposed in existing research as the best model. Limitations such as poor measurement scales and group characteristics could have influenced these findings. Thus, more research attempting to identify the relationship between social presence and mediated immediacy is warranted.

This study aimed to examine whether cognitive, social, and teaching presence were significant predictors of the overall students′ satisfaction of the online program in one of the largest Saudi universities. The used research design was non-experimental and correlational in nature. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine to what extent did cognitive, social, and teaching presence predict the overall students′ satisfaction. The data in this quantitative study was collected using a self-report survey. The target population was students who joined the online program, the developed Entesab program, in one of the largest Saudi universities in the eastern region. The findings of this study showed that overall regression, which had social and teaching presence, was statistically significant, F(2, 811) = 180.291, p < .05. Social presence and teaching presence both were found to explain 31.4% of the variance in students′ satisfaction. The overall regression, which predicted students′ satisfaction from social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence, was statistically significant, F(2, 811) = 166.18, p < .05, R2 = .38. The three presences together explained 38% of the variance in students′ satisfaction. Cognitive presence was found to have the largest contribution in predicting students′ satisfaction and it was a better predictor of students′ satisfaction compared with teaching presence and social presence.Due to the importance of cognitive, social, and teaching presence in predicting students′ satisfaction, it is recommended that improving these factors in the online courses be taken into consideration. Providing workshops to the online instructors was one of the recommendations made in order to help in improving faculty knowledge regarding the Community of Inquiry elements in the online environment. Another recommendation to the online instructors is to provide timely feedback, interact, and prepare well for the class activities and assignments. Since cognitive presence in this study was found to be a strong predictor of students′ satisfaction, it is recommended that faculty need to focus on this presence especially, and assure that students are able to reach the final stage of cognitive presence.

Managers have begun to respond to customers' online reviews of services on online review websites. However, it is not known how viewers evaluate company-initiated service recovery in the form of manager responses to online reviews. This research has three objectives: (1) to explore how managers are currently responding to electronic word of mouth; (2) to investigate whether a manager's response to electronic negative word of mouth (eNWOM) positively influences viewers' behavioral intentions; (3) to examine which elements in a manager's responses increases viewers' evaluations of trust and behavioral intentions towards the company. Three studies were conducted, one for each objective. Study "1 examined 21,211 online reviews and manager responses from Tripadvisor.com from 184 hotels in five cities. Study "2 was a single-factor between-subject experimental design by manipulating a manager's response to eNWOM (response message vs. no response message) through scenarios. Study "3 was a 2 (procedural justice: high vs. low) x 2 (interactional justice: high vs. low) x 2 (social presence: high vs. low) between-subject experimental design that manipulated manager's responses through scenarios. Findings from Study "1 revealed that managers were more likely to respond to eNWOM compared to neutral word of mouth. A content analysis of 432 company responses to eNWOM determined that managers used nine online review management strategies: appreciation, apology, future patronage encouragement, explanation, follow up, flexibility, correction, compensation, and social presence. Results from Study "2 indicated that viewers were more likely to visit a restaurant when a manager responded to eNWOM compared to no response to eNWOM. Results from Study "3 revealed a three-way interaction of procedural justice, interactional justice, and social presence on trust. There were also main effects of procedural justice and interactional justice on trust. Additionally, results provided partial support for the mediating role of trust in the relationship between the three-way interaction and behavioral intentions. This study contributes to the online service recovery literature and online trust formation literature by enhancing the understanding of how viewers evaluate manager responses to eNWOM and how social presence can be used with procedural justice and interactional justice to enhance trust in the online review management context. Service organizations should create a comprehensive online review system to respond to eNWOM and identify ways to enhance procedural justice, interactional justice, and social presence into their responses. Online review websites should encourage companies to provide managerial response to online complaints and allow for social presence and enhanced creative options in manager responses.

The purpose of this research study was to explore the impact of specific Web 2.0 tools on students' experience of teaching, social, and cognitive presence and motivation when enrolled in a very large hybrid course. With online course enrollments continuing to grow at a higher rate than traditional enrollments in higher education (Allen & Seaman, 2011) and universities increasing class sizes as a way to meet this demand with fewer fiscal resources, it is imperative to find ways to keep students engaged and motivated when enrolled in very large classes. This study used the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) to examine the effect of specific Web 2.0 tools (asynchronous discussion, streaming lectures, multimedia lecture demonstrations, Twitter, and the Second Life virtual world) on teaching, social, and cognitive presence and motivation. The sample population for this study (n = 567) consisted of undergraduate students enrolled in a very large hybrid accounting course in the fall of 2010 at the University of Central Florida. The total enrollment for the course was 943 students. Students could attend face-to-face (f2f) class sessions in a large lecture room that seated 285 students or they could view a streaming video capture of the lectures online. Students were not required to attend the f2f class sessions and could complete the course entirely online. Data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variances (ANOVA), and results of the statistical analyses indicated that students who frequently used the Web 2.0 tools had statistically significant higher mean motivation scores than students who did not use the tools as frequently. Additionally, students who frequently attended the f2f sessions had statistically significant higher mean social presence scores compared to students who attended sometimes or not at all. Attending the f2f sessions, however, did not result in higher mean scores of teaching or cognitive presence. When examined for the impact of the specific Web 2.0 tools, analysis of the ANOVA results indicated that students who used the discussion, streaming lectures, multimedia lecture demonstrations, and Twitter all of the time had significantly higher mean scores of teaching, social, and cognitive presence compared to those students who used the tools less frequently. Further research should be conducted on large hybrid and online courses in different content areas and on those that use different types of learning approaches.

This dissertation involved the creation and validation of a new measure of social presence. The first study involved the use of focus groups to create items for the future measure. The focus groups were presented with a set of items that were created based upon past literature; an through discussion of these items, a preliminary measure was created. The second study gathers data concerning the measure that was created from study one and an exploratory factor analysis was performed to eliminate items that did not work well with each other. This reduced the measure from 54 items to 23. The third study involved gathered data to perform a confirmatory factor analysis on the reduced measure from study two to 20 items. The confirmatory factor analysis, also provide construct validity for the measure. The end result of this dissertation is a valid and reliable measure of social presence that can be used to determine if a person has difficulty projecting him or herself as a real individual who is willing to interact with other online communicators.

Consumers acquire products to enhance their lives, but the happiness from these acquisitions generally decreases with the passage of time. This process of hedonic adaptation plays an integral role in post-acquisition consumer satisfaction, product disposal and replacement behavior, and the "hedonic treadmill" that partially drives the relationship between consumption and happiness. Humans are social animals, however, and we know little about the relationship between the social environment and hedonic adaptation. My dissertation addresses this gap by exploring the moderating role of social presence (Essay 1) and self-concepts (Essay 2) on hedonic adaptation to products. Essay 1 explores how social presence affects hedonic adaptation to products. Research on general happiness has shown that significantly positive life events tend to maintain their positivity for longer periods of time when they involve active social interactions. I examine a more common situation in the domain of product consumption, i.e., the presence of others during consumption, and test whether hedonic adaptation to products is moderated by public contexts. By tracking happiness with products over time, I show that a "social audience" (i.e., the presence of others and the perception that those others notice the consumer) moderates hedonic adaptation through a consumer's inference of the social audience perspective. Inferring that the social audience is admiring one's product slows down adaptation, and inferring that the social audience is negatively viewing one's product accelerates adaptation. Essay 2 explores the role the identity-relevance of a product plays in hedonic adaptation. Extant research illustrates that consumers avoid consuming identity-inconsistent products in order to avoid dissonance arising from product choices conflicting with important self-concepts. I show that dissonance can also arise from consuming identity-consistent products because of the force of hedonic adaptation. I provide evidence that consumers feel uncomfortable experiencing declining happiness with identity-consistent products and thus resist hedonic adaptation to such products in order to resolve the dissonance.

Interactivity seems to be a familiar concept, which partially explains its frequent use in discussions about new communication technologies and what they can bring to communication studies. However, interactivity research has yet to reach a comprehensive and concrete consensus concerning the antecedents and consequences of interactive experiences. The main objective of this research is to determine the factors responsible for fostering the interactivity experience in the multiuser virtual environments and to observe how this variance in interactivity will affect the formation of physical and social presence. The study also examines the possible relationship between physical and social presence via correlation analysis and uses a one-way ANOVA with Post-Hoc Tests to designate the effects of interactivity on physical and social presence.

The purpose of this research was to examine the connections between personality types as illustrated by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and the desire for social presence components within a technology based learning environment. Participants in the study were undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in an educational technology program at a public university in the State of Texas. The study employed a mixed-method qualitative approach that utilized a paired comparison evaluation, a personality assessment, and semi-structured interviews. Results showed that the components of organization and feedback were thought to best foster social presence in technology based learning environments and that there was no real difference between the personality types of introverts versus extroverts and judgers versus perceivers.

Trends in user-generated content on the Web are shifting the role of online course materials, student work, and communications channels in instructional settings. Evidence of users’ interaction with content has been brought into the foreground through interface elements which reflect and encourage interaction, including comments, ratings, tags, “likes”, view statistics, and others. This research considers such features "interaction traces" and explores their use and interpretation by student learners. This research investigates the use and perception of these features by students within a particular type of asynchronous learning environment, the creative writing workshop. Within the two courses studied, a poetry course and a fiction course, two forms of interaction traces were presented: peer criticism posted as comments on creative work and visible view counts for all comments posted in the course. Informed by the Community of Inquiry framework and using a case study methodology, this dissertation investigates whether interaction traces affect perceptions of social presence among students and how students respond to this evidence of the interaction and critique. Data were collected from course discussion transcripts, course management system usage statistics, and participant responses to six surveys. Discussion thread transcripts were subjected to content analysis for indicators of social presence. Additionally, the researcher performed individual interviews with the instructor and a subset of students. Analysis of participants' social presence, interaction with others, and participation in the class revealed evidence that peer criticism was mediated by social presence, that students engaged in a variety of individual relationships based on perceptions developed through interaction traces, and that participant reading and writing activities affected how they perceived the course and their peers. Social presence in comments served not only to humanize participants and to resolve conflict but led to confusion and frustration in some cases. The instructor's high level of social presence in the courses influenced participants and provided a model for some participants' approaches to coursework. Based on the themes which emerged from the case reports, this dissertation suggests some implications for online course planning and course management system design with regard to interaction traces.

The mobility, flexibility, convenience, and ubiquity of mobile data services (MDS) have contributed to their enormous growth and popularity with users. MDS allow users to communicate through mobile texting (mTexting), mobile Instant Messaging (mIM), multimedia messaging services (MMS), and email. A unique feature of MDS that enhances its popularity among its users is the awareness capability, which is revolutionizing the way MDS is being used to communicate today. It allows potential communication partners to socialize through these technologies. This dissertation explored the relationship between user experience, perceived richness, perceived social presence and satisfaction with MDS. A research model for examining the antecedent conditions that influence social presence, richness, social interaction and satisfaction with MDS was developed. Partial least square analysis showed that user experience influenced both social presence and richness. Also supported was the relationship between richness, social presence and satisfaction with MDS. Social presence mediated the relationship between user experience and richness. However, only one dimension of interactivity influenced social presence.

Just as visual cues influence our face-to-face conversations and behavior during cross-cutting political discussions, visual cues in computer-mediated communication (CMC) are hypothesized to do the same. The research presented here assesses the impact of visual cues offered by avatars on perceived source credibility, willingness to engage in cross-cutting political discussion, and reevaluation of a counter-attitudinal political idea. A 2x3 experiment revealed that there were no significant differences in credibility ratings, willingness to engage in cross-cutting political conversation, and reevaluation between those who interacted with a avatar high in human realism, one low in human realism, and no avatar. However, there was a significant interaction between the textual credibility of a message and the decision to reevaluate a counter attitudinal political idea when an avatar was present. These results indicate that when an avatar is present, cues to message credibility become more important in determining reevaluation. Implications for cue processing in CMC and future research are discussed.

Growing interest of educational institutions in desktop 3D graphic virtual environments for hybrid and distance education prompts questions on the efficacy of such tools. Virtual worlds, such as Second Life®, enable computer-mediated immersion and interactions encompassing multimodal communication channels including audio, video, and text-. These are enriched by avatar-mediated body language and physical manipulation of the environment. In this para-physical world, instructors and students alike employ avatars to establish their social presence in a wide variety of curricular and extra-curricular contexts. As a proxy for the human body in synthetic 3D environments, an avatar represents a 'real' human computer user and incorporates default behavior patterns (e.g., autonomous gestures such as changes in body orientation or movement of hands) as well as expressive movements directly controlled by the user through keyboard 'shortcuts.' Use of headset microphones and various stereophonic effects allows users to project their speech directly from the apparent location of their avatar. In addition, personalized information displays allow users to share graphical information, including text messages and hypertext links. These 'channels' of information constituted an integrated and dynamic framework for projecting avatar 'immediacy' behaviors (including gestures, intonation, and patterns of interaction with students), that may positively or negatively affect the degree to which other observers of the virtual world perceive the user represented by the avatar as 'socially present' in the virtual world. This study contributes to the nascent research on educational implementations of Second Life in higher education. Although education researchers have investigated the impact of instructor immediacy behaviors on student perception of instructor social presence, students' satisfaction, motivation, and learning, few researchers have examined the effects of immediacy behaviors in a 3D virtual environment or the effects of immediacy behaviors manifested by avatars representing instructors. The study employed a two-factor experimental design to investigate the relationship between instructor avatars' immediacy behaviors (high vs. low) and students' perception of instructor immediacy, instructor social presence, student avatars co-presence and learning outcomes in Second Life. The study replicates and extends aspects of an earlier study conducted by Maria Schutt, Brock S. Allen, and Mark Laumakis, including components of the experimental treatments that manipulated the frequency of various types of immediacy behaviors identified by other researchers as potentially related to perception of social presence in face-to-face and mediated instruction. Participants were 281 students enrolled in an introductory psychology course at San Diego State University who were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Each group viewed a different version of the 28-minute teaching session in Second Life on current perspective in psychology. Data were gathered from student survey responses and tests on the lesson content. Analysis of variance revealed significant differences between the treatment groups (F (3,113) = 6.5,p = .000). Students who viewed the high immediacy machinimas (Group 1 HiHi and Group 2 HiLo) rated the immediacy behaviors of the instructor-avatar more highly than those who viewed the low-immediacy machinimas (Group 3 LoHi and Group 4 LoLo). Findings also demonstrate strong correlations between students' perception of instructor avatar immediacy and instructor social presence (r = .769). These outcomes in the context of a 3D virtual world are consistent with findings on instructor immediacy and social presence literature in traditional and online classes. Results relative to learning showed that all groups tested higher after viewing the treatment, with no significant differences between groups. Recommendations for current and future practice of using instructor-avatars include paralanguage behaviors such as voice quality, emotion and prosodic features and nonverbal behaviors such as proxemics and gestures, facial expression, lip synchronization and eye contact.

The purpose of this study was to examine how text message communication creates a feeling of social presence, and how it affects self-disclosure, intimacy, and uncertainty. A total of 171 participants were surveyed who at the time were engaged in a dating relationship and used text messages. The findings indicated that a feeling of social presence can be achieved through text message communication. The results indicated a significant positive relationship between the amount of text messages sent to a dating partner and the feeling of social presence. Specifically, a relationship was found between the amount of text messages sent daily from a dating partner and received daily from a dating partner and relational uncertainty. The analysis revealed a negative relationship between the amount of text messages sent to a dating partner and relational uncertainty. Furthermore, this study suggested there is a positive relationship between relationship stage and self-disclosure through text messages, but there isn’t one between the length of a relationship and self disclosure via text messages. Lastly, it was found that the amount of text messages sent to a dating partner and received from one’s dating partner facilitate intimacy.