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Internet and Higher Education 21 (2014) 68–73
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Internet and Higher Education
Interrelationships between and among social, teaching, andcognitive presence
Doctoral candidate Kadir Kozan ⁎, Jennifer C. RichardsonCollege of Education, Purdue University, 100 N. Street, 47907 West Lafayette, IN, USA
⁎ Corresponding author at: College of Education, DInstruction, Purdue University, 100 N. Street, 47907 We765 714 7142; fax: +1 765 494 5832.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (K. Kozan), jen(J.C. Richardson).
1096-7516/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2013.10.007
a b s t r a c t
a r t i c l e i n f oArticle history:Accepted 24 October 2013Available online 31 October 2013
Keywords:social presenceteaching presencecognitive presencecommunity of inquiry
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationships between and among teaching, social, andcognitive presence. To this end, Spearman's rank correlation and partial correlation analyses were employed.The results referred to (a) positive large bivariate correlational relationships between presence types, and (b)the dependence of these pairwise relationships on the third presence to a certain extent. For instance, it wasfound that cognitive presencemay have a strong effect on the relationship between teaching presence and socialpresence because the relationship between teaching presence and social presencemay disappearwhen cognitivepresence is controlled for. On the other hand, results also suggested that the relationship between cognitivepresence and social presence, and the relationship between teaching presence and cognitive presence maylargely be independent of the effect of the other third presence.
© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
There is a continued interest in online higher education (Lloyd,Byrne, & McCoy, 2012) as evidenced by the number of US studentstaking at least one online course, which has now surpassed 6.5 million,and 65% of higher education institutions report that online learningis a critical part of their long-term strategy (Allen & Seaman, 2013).While compelling, this accelerated growth suggests an ever-growingand competitive online higher education market. It also raises signifi-cant questions related to the quality of online instruction in terms ofsuch outcomes as student learning and perceived efficacy where effec-tiveness and efficiency are of great importance for learning purposes.Consequently, higher education institutions need to keep a close eyeon the quality of online education they offer in order to survive inthe market, and future online research should provide us with moreinsights into how to increase the quality of online education; to thisend, theoretical insights can be of great help.
In order to make the most out of theoretical insights, it is necessaryto empirically test them. The community of inquiry (CoI) (Garrison &Akyol, 2013a,b; Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, 2001, 2010;Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007), is a popular theoretical framework that fo-cuses on quality online education and encourages increasing levels ofteaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence and assumesan overlapping relationship between and among the presences. Muchresearch has been done on the CoI (e.g., Arbaugh, 2008; Shea et al.,2011) but there has been limited research on the overlapping relation-
epartment of Curriculum andst Lafayette, IN, USA. Tel.: +1
ghts reserved.
ships (e.g., Akyol & Garrison, 2008; Ke, 2010). The purpose of the cur-rent study is to empirically examine the interrelationships betweenand among the three presences.
2. The community of inquiry framework
The CoI Framework emerged within the lieu of higher educationcomputer conferencing or asynchronous textual group discussions(Garrison et al., 2010). It is important to note here that this frameworkhas a social-constructivist orientation toward learning (Akyol &Garrison, 2011; Akyol, Ice, Garrison, & Mitchell, 2010; Akyol et al.,2009; Shea et al., 2011; Swan, Garrison, & Richardson, 2009; Swan &Ice, 2010). According to social constructivism, learning stems fromlearners' interaction in a socio-cultural context through a sense-making process (Oldfather, West, White, & Wilmarth, 1999). Conse-quently, the CoI Framework specifically focuses on the learning process(Akyol et al., 2009; Swan, Garrison, & Richardson, 2009) versus otherframeworks that focus on learning outcomes (Akyol et al., 2009).
2.1. The presences
At the core of the CoI Framework are three overlapping constructs orpresences: (a) cognitive presence, (b) teaching presence, and (c) socialpresence. At the intersection of the overlapping constructs is a “deepand meaningful educational experience” [Arbaugh et al., 2008, p. 134].
Cognitive presence refers to the extent to which online learnerscan construct and validate meaning based on critical and continuouscommunication and thinking (Garrison et al., 2000, 2001). In otherwords, cognitive presence means being cognitively active, in thatlearners seek the most effective and efficient ways of solving a learningproblem, and apply these solutions at the end. Specifically speaking,
69K. Kozan, J.C. Richardson / Internet and Higher Education 21 (2014) 68–73
cognitive presence has been defined through Dewey’s practical inquirymodel (Garrison et al., 2001) and consists of: (a) a triggering eventpresenting a problem to solve, (b) exploration of the ideas regardinghow to solve the problem, (c) integration of the solution ideas, and(d) resolution through which the best one or ones are chosen andapplied.
Based on the practical inquiry model above, cognitive presencecomprises an iterative and sometimes cyclical move through a trigger-ing event, exploration, integration, and resolution phases (Garrison &Arbaugh, 2007). Consequently, Garrison (2003) asserted the importanceof understanding cognitive presence to achieve deep and meaningfullearning. After all, cognitive presence mirrors “the focus and success ofthe learning experience” (Vaughan & Garrison, 2005, p. 8).
Previous research found a smaller number of resolution and integra-tion stages, especially comparedwith the exploration stage (e.g., Arnold& Ducate, 2006; Garrison et al., 2001; Kanuka, Rourke, & Laflamme,2007; Meyer, 2003). This finding has been attributed to an inter-relationship between cognitive presence and teaching presence(Garrison, 2007; Garrison & Akyol, 2013a; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007;Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005; Vaughan & Garrison, 2005). Specifi-cally, Garrison and Arbaugh (2007) underscored the roles of facilitation,direction, and task design in encouraging the resolution or applicationstage of cognitive presence. Each of these implies a need for teachingpresence that enhances critical thinking to reach higher levels ofcognitive presence or learning (Garrison & Akyol, 2013a).
Teaching presence is “the design, facilitation, and direction ofcognitive and social presences for the purpose of realizing personallymeaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes” (Garrisonet al., 2000, p. 5). It includes the components of design and organization,facilitating discourse and direct instruction (Akyol & Garrison, 2008;Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001; Garrison, 2013; Garrison &Akyol, 2013a). According to Garrison et al. (2000), the main obligationof teaching presence is to sustain cognitive and social presence throughdesigning instruction and facilitating learning. Garrison (2011) explainedthat even though teaching presence is usually within the instructor’srealm, it can extend to anyone participating in a community of inquiry.Therefore, it is not surprising that previous studies highlighted the impor-tance of teaching presence for educational communities of inquiry(Garrison & Akyol, 2013a). Teaching presence is of great importance notonly in terms of learning consequences but also in the alignment of socialand cognitive presence (Garrison & Akyol, 2013a). Similarly, Garrison(2011) claimed that teaching presence brings the components of acommunity of inquiry together in such away that it concurswith learningoutcomes, learner needs, and learner abilities. This indicates that teachingpresence relates not only to cognitive presence but to social presence aswell.
Because social presence highlights encouraging social interaction aswell as the underpinnings of critical thinking and higher level learning(Garrison & Akyol, 2013a), it is thought to be of great significance for acommunity of inquiry (Garrison et al., 2010). Garrison (2009) describedit as a continuous process of maintaining relationships, identifying withthe community, and involving in meaningful and trustful communica-tion (as cited in Garrison & Akyol, 2013a, p. 107). Social presence—defined as the degree to which participants feel affectively connectedto one another— is based on the components of “emotional expression,open communication, and group cohesion” (Garrison et al., 2000, p. 99).According to Garrison andAkyol (2013a), affective or emotional expres-sions (which refer to interpersonal communication), may not be themain drivers for social presence, but rather serve as the foundation ofa learning community. Open communication, moreover, is mutualand courteous communication (Garrison et al., 2000). Finally, groupcohesion means establishing and maintaining a feeling or sense of acommunity through a feeling of belongingness, which favors groupmembership over individuality (Garrison et al., 2000). While arguingthat group cohesion requiresmore than social interactions and relation-ships, Garrison and Arbaugh (2007) stated that “social presence in a
community of inquiry must create personal but purposeful relation-ships” (p. 160).
This suggests that the presences, at least theoretically, relate to eachother. More specifically, it is clear that teaching presence is expected toaffect both cognitive and social presence, with the latter functioning asthe underlying construct that brings the three together. In terms of cre-ating a learning environment that supports cognitive presence, it isplausible to expect social presence to relate to cognitive presence aswell. Despite these reasonable relationships, less is known about thenature of these interrelationships between and among the presencesdue to fewer studies focusing on this topic. The next section focuseson these interrelationships.
2.2. How the presences relate to each other
Pointing to the impact the presences may have on each other,Garrison and Arbaugh (2007) claimed that we need to gain moreinsights into the interconnectedness of the presences. The authors alsocriticized earlier research because of the lack of enough focus on theframework as a whole or the interdependence of the presences. Thus,if learning happens at the intersection of the presences (Arbaugh etal., 2008) understanding how the presences relate to each other is ofgreat importance.
However, there have been fewer studies focusing on this issue. UsingSpearman's correlation analysis, for example, Akyol and Garrison(2008) found a significant relationship between teaching presenceand cognitive presence only (rs = .779).This does not concur with theconceptualization of the CoI Framework by Garrison et al. (2000) be-cause this model presumes both an intersection of all the presencesand an intersection between any of the two presences. After all, educa-tional experience resides in the common intersection of all threepresences (Garrison et al., 2000). The results from Akyol and Garrison(2008) are surprising given that the graduate course context of thestudy was designed in accordance with the CoI Framework and highlevels of presence reported by the participants. In this regard, Sheaet al. (2010) found that when instructor teaching presence and socialpresence are high, they relate positively and significantly (r`s = .97and 0.98, respectively) to student social presence toward the end ofan online course.
Ke (2010) also examined how the presences relate to each other.The researcher operationalized teaching presence as online coursecontent design and discussion design; cognitive presence as “the degreeof learning satisfaction, the degree of self-perceived deep & surfacelearning, and the amount of knowledge-constructive interactionunits”; and social presence as ratings on Rovai (2002)'s classroomcommunity scale and “the amount of social interaction units” (p. 817).Results yielded that content and discussion design significantly predictsknowledge-constructive interaction units and social interaction, as wellas the positive significant relationship between cognitive presenceand social presence. Accordingly, Ke (2010) surmised that teachingpresence has a significant role in encouraging cognitive and social pres-ences, and that there is strong association between the two.
Similarly, using a standard multiple regression analysis, Archibald(2010) focused on whether teaching presence and social presence canpredict cognitive presence. Results revealed that teaching presenceand social presence can significantly explain the variance in cognitivepresence. Results further indicated that social presence makes a largersignificant contribution to the explanation of cognitive presence thanteaching presence.
The studies above referred to correlational relationships. Twoother recent studies used structural equation modeling to examine thecausal relationships among the presences. Using a large sample size(n = 2159) in an online learning environment, Shea and Bidjerano(2009) found that only teaching presence has a significant totaland direct effect on cognitive presence, while social presence has a sig-nificant direct effect on cognitive presence only. Similarly, Garrison,
70 K. Kozan, J.C. Richardson / Internet and Higher Education 21 (2014) 68–73
Cleveland-Innes, and Fung`s (2010) structural equation modeling studyrevealed significant direct effects of teaching presence and social pres-ence on cognitive presence, as well as a significant direct effect of socialpresence on cognitive presence. Both Shea and Bidjerano (2009), andGarrison et al. (2010) concluded that these results suggest that teachingpresence can significantly predict cognitive presence while social pres-ence has a mediating role between the two.
Overall, despite the divergent findings they reported, all the studiesabove strongly suggest that there may be close interrelationshipsbetween and among the presences. This supports the notion that therelationship between any of the two presences can be under the effectof the third presence. Therefore, controlling for the effect of the thirdpresence may provide more direct insights into the relationshipbetween the other two. To this end, the present study employed bothcorrelation and partial correlation analyses to identify how a certainpresence can mediate the relationship between the other two byaddressing the following research questions:
1. Is there a relationship between the amount of social presence andteaching presence as perceived by graduate level online learners?a. After controlling for cognitive presence, is there still a relationship
between social presence and teaching presence?2. Is there a relationship between the amount of social presence and
cognitive presence as perceived by graduate level online learners?a. After controlling for teaching presence, is there still a relationship
between social presence and cognitive presence?3. Is there a relationship between the amount of teaching presence and
cognitive presence as perceived by graduate level online learners?a. After controlling for social presence, is there still a relationship
between teaching presence and cognitive presence?
Because the relationships between the respective presences were ofparticular interest for the present study, bivariate and partial correlationanalyses were chosen mainly due to (a) violation of normality assump-tion, and (b) possible multicollinearity problems that may havestemmed from high correlations between the presences. Significant,large correlations found between the presences legitimized this concernto some extent.
3. Methods
3.1. Setting
The present study took place at a largeMidwesternUS public univer-sity. The data originated from online learners enrolling in an online MSprogram. There were six graduate level online courses (three creditseach) consisting of 17 sections included in the data collection and atotal of 11 instructors. Table 1 presents a summary of the courses inwhich participants were enrolled:
3.2. Participants
The participants enrolling in the online program are generally full-time professionals who have off-campus jobs. The students rangefrom 21 years of age to 60 years of age with a mean age of 37.5 years.
Table 1Brief description of online graduate courses.
Course Description
Course 1 This course presents a historical background of educational technology and instruCourse 2 This course provides both theoretical and practical insights into human performaCourse 3 This is a project-based course with a specific focus on effective learning systems oCourse 4 Fueled by both theoretical points and research findings, this course includes creatCourse 5 Covering topics ranging from educational reform tomanagement issues, this cours
environments (elective)Course 6 Employing a case-based approach to learning, this course focuses on topics rangin
during instructional design process (required)
Students reported being enrolled in from 4 to 9 credits in the reportedsemester. More than 2/3 of the students are female (67.7% female,32.3% male). Student ethnicity was reported as follows: 74.8% white,7.9% black or African American, 7.9% Hispanic/Latino, 4.7% Asian, 0.8%American Indian or Alaskan Native, 0.8% report two or more races,and 0.8% international. Of the domestic students, 17.3% are underrepre-sented minorities.
There were 211 graduate students who participated in the presentstudy and they were part of a convenience sample enrolled in thecourses during the summer and fall of 2012. The average number ofstudents in each course was approximately 35, with approximately 12in each section. The number of online courses taken prior to data collec-tion ranged from one to four. Table 2 provides the number of studentsenrolling in each course together with percentage values:
3.3. Measure
The data were collected using the CoI questionnaire (Arbaugh et al.,2008).The 34-item Community of Inquiry Framework survey in-strument measures the three presences and uses a five-point scale(1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).
The validity and reliability of the CoI questionnaire were previouslyestablished. A principal component analysis found that data supportsthe construct validity of the presences as measured by the CoI instru-ment (Swan et al., 2008). Arbaugh et al.`s (2008) factor analysis demon-strated the clustering of sub-elements within the model, therebyverifying the theoretical structure of the CoI Framework. The samestudy also produced Cronbach’s alpha indexes indicative of high internalconsistency: (a) teaching presence = 0.94; (b) social presence = 0.91;(c) cognitive presence = 0.95.
3.4. Procedure
An online version of the CoI survey was posted on a course manage-ment system used by the instructors to deliver their courses. The datawere collected at the end of each course as a part of course evaluationprocedure. When each session was over, the participants were askedto complete the CoI questionnaire with as much care as possible in aretrospective way.
4. Results and Discussion
This study employed correlation analyses to identify the relation-ships between and among teaching presence, social presence, andcognitive presence. Preliminary analyses showed that the data violatedthe normality assumption, as the Kolmogorov–Smirnov was significant.None of the applied data transformation methods worked. As a result,the non-parametric Spearman's rho (rs) was employed. Once the datawere analyzed, they had anoverall Cronbach's alpha value of 0.975. Spe-cifically, a value of 0.975was found for the cognitive presence portion ofthe survey, a value of 0.918 for the social presence component, and0.957 for the teaching presence part, which refers to high internalconsistency.
ctional design as well as professional-level knowledge, skills, and attitudes (required)nce technology focusing on both research and application literature (elective)r contexts in the classroom or workplace (required)ing hypermedia instructional materials (elective)e focuses on techniques for and issues pertaining to integration of computers in learning
g from co-analyzing instructional design problems to encouraging constructive feedback
Table 2Number of students enrolling in each course.
Course N %
Course 1 28 13.3Course 2 6 2.8Course 3 50 23.7Course 4 66 31.3Course 5 4 1.9Course 6 57 27Total 211 100
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To answer the research questions, both bivariate and partial correla-tional analyses were run. Bivariate correlations served the purposeof determining the relationship between two given presence types. Byextension, partial correlations let us examine the same relationshipswhile controlling for the effect of the third presence type. This wasdone to gain deeper insights into the nature of the relationship betweentwo presence types by eliminating the possible effects of the third one.Table 3 represents the bivariate correlation coefficients:
The correlations given in Table 3 above refer to positive, large, andsignificant relationships between two of the presences. Because all ofthe pairwise correlations are significant, it was determined that it wasworth testing whether the relationships between two of the presenceswould still hold significant when the effect of the third presence wascontrolled for. This served the aim of reaching a clearer picture of therelationship between any presence pairs.
4.1. The relationship between teaching presence and social presence
There was a large, positive correlation between teaching presenceand social presence, rs = .553, n = 211, p b .01, with high levels ofteaching presence related to high levels of social presence. This refersto a 30.60% shared variance between teaching presence and socialpresence. These refer to a strong relationship between teachingpresence and social presence as perceived by the online learners whoparticipated in this study. Specifically, this finding suggests thatincreases in teaching presence are highly associated with increases insocial presence or vice versa.
To eliminate any possible effects of cognitive presence on thisrelationship, a partial correlation analysis was conducted. This yieldeda non-significant partial correlation between teaching presence andsocial presence, pr = −.128, n = 211, p N .05. This indicates thatwhen the effect of cognitive presence is controlled for, the relationshipbetween teaching presence and social presence may disappear. Inother words, cognitive presence may have a strong mediating effecton the relationship between teaching presence and social presence.This further implies that increases in teaching presence may relate toincreases in social presence only under the effect of cognitive presence,thus highlighting the importance of cognitive presence as it relates toboth teaching and social presences.
4.2. The relationship between teaching presence and cognitive presence
Bivariate correlation analysis revealed a strong positive correlationbetween teaching presence and cognitive presence, rs = .826,n = 211, p b .01. This indicates that high levels of teaching presenceare closely associatedwith high levels of cognitive presence. This further
Table 3Bivariate correlation coefficients between presence types.
Presence Type Teaching Presence Social Presence Cognitive Presence
Teaching presence — .553⁎⁎ .826⁎⁎
Social presence — .663⁎⁎
Cognitive presence —
⁎⁎ p b .01(two-tailed).
produced a 68.23% shared variance between teaching presence andcognitive presence. A partial correlation analysiswas run to seewhetherthis relationship would still hold true when the social presence effectwas controlled for. The results still revealed a strong positive partialcorrelation between teaching presence and cognitive presenceindependent of social presence, pr = .730, n = 211, p b .01, pointingto a 53.30% shared variance. Compared with the partial correlationbetween teaching presence and social presence, the one between teach-ing presence and cognitive presence appears to be stronger because it isstill large (above .50). This indicates that social presence may affect therelationship between teaching presence and cognitive presence, albeitslightly.
4.3. The relationship between cognitive presence and social presence
Analyses resulted in a strong positive correlation between socialpresence and cognitive presence, rs = .663, n = 211, p b .01. Thisindicates that higher levels of social presence related to higher levelsof cognitive presence. Moreover, the correlation coefficient revealed a44% shared variance between cognitive presence and social presence.Further partial correlation analysis controlling for teaching presencestill produced a large and positive partial correlation between cognitivepresence and social presence, pr = .563, n = 211, p b .01, referring to31.70% shared variance between cognitive presence and socialpresence. Similar to the partial correlation between teaching presenceand cognitive presence, the one between cognitive presence and socialpresence still holds strong. This suggests that teaching presencemay have a limited effect on the cognitive presence–social presencerelationship.
Overall, these results do not align with the theoretical and empir-ical assumption that social presence is the mediating presence be-tween teaching presence and cognitive presence (e.g., Garrison etal., 2010; Shea & Bidjerano, 2009). This would have emanated fromthe type of analyses employed. For instance, it is noteworthy to men-tion here that Garrison et al. (2010), and Shea and Bidjerano (2009)focused on causal relationships through structural equation model-ing, while the present study used a correlationmethodology. Accord-ing to Bollen and Pearl (2013), structural equation models are basedon the causal assumptions of the researchers. Moreover, Tomarkenand Waller (2005) asserted that there may be alternative modelsthat can also concur with the available data. The correlation method-ology of the current study, on the other hand, is far from providingcause and effect insights.
Moreover, Ke (2010) mainly treated social presence and cognitivepresence as outcomes through regression and correlation analysesthat focused on the relationships between the presences. It shouldalso be noted that while Ke (2010) operationalized cognitive presenceand social presence in multiple ways, the present study measuredeach using only the CoI survey. Similarly, using regression analyses,Archibald (2010) examined the predictability of cognitive presence byteaching and social presences, thus again treating cognitive presenceas an outcome. On the other hand, the present study ran correlationanalyses only focusing on the relationships between and among thepresences.
Another explanation for the discrepancy between the results ofthe present study and earlier research may have stemmed from thecharacteristics of the sample used. Specifically speaking, the majorityof students were full-time professionals enrolled in an intensive onlineMS program, making this sample somewhat unique compared withsamples from other CoI studies that include full-time students. Conse-quently, the participants may have focused more on learning activitiesdue to the possible limited amount of time they could spend on the on-line courses in addition to their job responsibilities. This would have letthem establish and maintain the social interactions among themselvesprimarily for learning purposes and completing course work. All thesesuggest that the interrelationships between and among the presences
72 K. Kozan, J.C. Richardson / Internet and Higher Education 21 (2014) 68–73
may significantly depend on the particular learner group and learningcontext. Such an assumption is in line with the dynamic nature of theCoI Framework and its main focus on the learning process.
5. Conclusions
Understanding the interrelations between and among teachingpresence, social presence, and cognitive presence may enrich boththeoretical insights and online education practice informed by theCoI Framework. In this respect, both correlation studies (e.g., Akyol &Garrison, 2008) and studies focusing on causal relations (e.g., Garrisonet al., 2010; Shea & Bidjerano, 2009) canmake significant contributions.To serve this purpose, the present study ran both correlation and partialcorrelation analyses that led to the conclusion that cognitive presencemay significantly affect the relationship between teaching presenceand social presence. In addition to the strong relationship betweenteaching and cognitive presence, and between cognitive and socialpresence without a strong effect of the third presence, we suggest thatinstructor efforts to increase cognitive presence may automaticallyresult in increased student social presence to a certain extent. From asocial presence perspective, this might also suggest that efforts toincrease social presence should not only focus on social interactionbut also on encouraging cognitive presence through social interaction.In other words, social presence may contribute to enhancing cognitivepresence,which in turnwould enhance social presence itself. This alignswith Garrison and Arbaugh`s (2007) idea that social presence andcognitive presence interaction is important and that social presenceshould go beyond social interactions and relationships because a learn-ing community requires more.
Practically speaking, then, teachingpresence that increases cognitivepresence would also increase social presence, which would depend onthe learners. For instance, of particular concern for the learners maybe learning itself, and they may view interactions with others as a toolto achieve this. In such a context, increasing cognitive presence mayincrease social presence as well, especially when learners valueothers' ideas, feedback and collaboration. This aligns with Garrisonand Akyol`s (2013a) idea that social presence relates not only to fos-tering social interaction but also to critical thinking and learningsimultaneously.
Given the contradictions of the present results with some of earlierresearch, another conclusion is that the interdependence of thepresences may change depending on the learner profile and learningcontext. From a theoretical perspective, this would be a naturalbyproduct of the dynamic and process-oriented focus of the CoI Frame-work. All these further suggest that the interrelations of the presencesmay also change or fluctuate over time in a given online learningenvironment. In this regard, formative evaluation of online learningexperiences through the lenses of the CoI Framework may be of greathelp to enhance quality and retention of the students (Boston et al.,2009).
Finally, there may be a need to re-examine the definition of socialpresence, as Garrison and Akyol (2013a) discuss in their work. Addi-tionally, Garrison (2009) discussed his view that the prototype socialpresence construct did not cover all its complexities, and broadenedhis definition to “the ability of participants to identify with the commu-nity (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trustingenvironment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way ofprojecting their individual personalities” (p. 352). If we accept thenew definition, then perhaps we also need to re-examine the represen-tation of social presence in the CoI survey, as several items were basedon our understanding of the definition and meaning of social presenceat that time; if the definition is reexamined, so too should the socialpresence items on the CoI. This correspondswith a recent journal articleby Lowenthal and Dunlap (in press), which recommends amendingseveral of the CoI instrument items for a better fit.
All these should be approachedwith caution due to the limitations ofthe present study. First, the data were collected from a single graduateprogram, thereby decreasing the chances of generalizability. Moreover,the data came from different courses offered by different instructorswhose online teaching regime may have also affected participants' re-sponses to the CoI questionnaire. This point warrants future researchthat would also examine the possible effects of different instructor ap-proaches on the relationships between and among the presences. Final-ly, participants may have completed the CoI surveymore than once dueto enrolment in more than one online course. Even though participantswere particularly asked to complete the questionnaire by focusing onone single course each time, ratings for one course may have calibratedthe ratings for another course. Further research needs to eliminate sucha potentially contaminating factor by asking each participant to respondto the CoI survey regarding a single course only. This further entailsplanning for a large enough sample that would make it possible to runrelevant statistical analyses.
Acknowledgments
The data used in the present research were collected from an onlineMS program at a large Midwestern US University to which heartfeltthanks go. The authors are also grateful to Neşet Mutlu and Taeho Yufor their contributions during data organization and screening. Wealso thank the anonymous reviewers whose ideas contributed to thepresent paper.
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