Social Presence in the Web-Based Synchronous Secondary Classroom.

he purpose of the study reported on in this paper was to explore how teachers and students manifest social presence in the web-based synchronous secondary classroom (WBSSC). Data were collected using structured and unstructured observations of twelve online recordings of web-based synchronous classes in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Structured observations were guided by an instrument developed by Rourke, Anderson, Garrison and Archer (2001) for identifying and measuring social presence in an online context. Findings revealed that teachers and students relied on different tools when providing affective, interactive and cohesive responses related to social presence. Manifestations of social presence by the teachers occurred through use of two-way audio whereas students relied on text-based Direct Messaging. Expressions of social presence by the students and teachers occurred most often in a context of digressions that drew attention away from the delivery of content. In addition, students demonstrated social presence using discourse conventions transferred from informal social contexts of instant messaging such as ICQ and MSN. Resume : L’objet de la presente etude consistait a examiner de quelle facon les enseignants et les etudiants font preuve de presence sociale dans les salles de classe synchrones en ligne du secondaire. Des donnees ont ete recueillies au moyen d’observations structurees et non structurees provenant de douze enregistrements en ligne de classes synchrones accessibles par Internet dans la province de Terre-Neuve et Labrador, Canada. Les observations structurees ont ete dirigees au moyen d’un instrument developpe par Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, et Archer (2001) afin d’identifier et de mesurer la presence sociale en ligne. Les resultats demontrent que les enseignants et les eleves utilisent des outils differents pour offrir des reponses affectives, interactives et homogenes liees a leur presence sociale. Les manifestations de presence sociale par les enseignants se sont produites au moyen de l’utilisation d’un systeme de transmission audio bilateral ou les etudiants comptaient sur la messagerie texte directe. Les expressions de presence sociale des etudiants et des enseignants se produisent la plupart du temps dans un contexte de digressions qui fait en sorte qu’on s’eloigne du contenu. De plus, les etudiants ont fait preuve de presence sociale au moyen de conventions sur le discours provenant de contextes sociaux informels de messagerie instantanee comme ICQ et MSN.

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