web viewmunoz, l. r., pellefrini-lafont, c., & cramer, e. (2014). using social media in teacher...
TRANSCRIPT
Running head: THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING 1
The Effect of Twitter on Social Presence in Online Learning
Terrence M. Shaneyfelt
Boise State University
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING2
Abstract
Social presence theory is commonly used to describe and understand how people interact
in online learning environments. It has evolved from being primarily a quality of the medium to
being embodied in the perceptions of learners. Several scales have been developed to measure
social presence.
Social networking tools are being used more frequently in both online and face-to-face
learning environments. Encouraging interaction has been shown to promote social presence. A
primary role of social networking tools is to facilitate interaction between people. Thus, it
follows that social networking tools should improve social presence. In this paper I review the
evolution of social presence theory and examine the effect that Twitter has on social presence in
online learning environments.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING3
The Effect of Twitter on Social Presence in Online Learning
Online learning is popular. According to the National Center for Education Statistics
(2012), in the Fall of 2012 11% of undergraduate students and 22% of graduate students were
enrolled in exclusively online courses and 14.2% and 7.8%, respectively, were enrolled in some,
but not all, online courses. In an informal survey I conducted of second year medical students at
the University Of Alabama School Of Medicine, 80% reported taking at least one online course
prior to medical school.
Student persistence in an online course is a measure of satisfaction in an online course.
Hart (2012) reviewed the literature on factors associated with student persistence in online
courses. She found that satisfaction with online learning, a sense of belonging to the learning
community, motivation, peer, and family support, time management skills, and increased
communication with the instructor were all associated with completing an online course. Two
elements, a sense of belonging to the learning community and communication with the
instructor, are important elements of making an online course similar to a face-to-face course.
They are also elements of social presence in an online course.
Social Presence Theory
Despite the passage of almost forty years since its initial description, a unified theory of
social presence has been elusive (Kehrwald, 2008). Social presence theory has evolved from
being primarily a quality of the medium to being embodied in the perceptions of the learner
(Lowenthal, 2009). Short, Williams, and Christie (1976) defined social presence as the “degree
of salience of the other person in the interaction and the consequent salience of the interpersonal
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING4
relationships” (p. 65). They felt social presence was a quality of the communications medium
itself and that different media could convey varying degrees of social presence.
Gunawardena and Zittle (1997) defined social presence as the “degree to which a person
is perceived as ‘real’ in mediated communication.” They developed the Social Presence Scale
and applied it to students participating in a virtual computer conference. They found that social
presence explained 58% of the variance in predicting learner satisfaction. They showed that
different students using the same medium sensed different levels of social presence. Thus,
Gunawardena and Zittle moved the theory of social presence away from a technology-focused
perspective to one of a personal perspective.
There are two concepts of social presence (Tu and McIsaac, 2002). Intimacy is a
function of eye contact, body language and positioning, topic of conversation, etc. Immediacy is
the psychological distance between communicators. It is both verbal and nonverbal. The more
information transmitted the smaller the psychological distance. In computer mediated
communications (CMC) missing nonverbal cues can be supplied by emoticons.
There are three dimensions of social presence (Tu, 2000). Social context is
multidimensional and includes social processes, social relationships among participants,
perceived privacy, and types of tasks. Online communications refers to the language used to
express oneself and communicate online and a participant’s technical skills in communicating
online. The activities in which users engage with each other and the timeliness of their responses
constitutes interactivity. Tu argues that online course designers should consider these dimensions
when designing a course. See the Figure from Tu and McIssac (2002) for relationships between
the concepts and dimensions of social presence.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING5
Tu and McIssac (2002) studied their conceptualization of social presence utilizing their
previously developed Social Presence and Privacy Questionnaire (also referred to as CMC
Questionnaire). Factor analysis of CMC Questionnaire items found that five factors explained
77% of the variance: social context, online communications, interactivity, system privacy, and
feeling of privacy. Their qualitative analysis found social presence to be more complicated than
previously thought. They found twenty three variables (Table 2 of their paper) that impacted
social presence and identified system privacy as a new dimension of social presence. Based on
this study they defined social presence as “the degree of feeling, perception, and reaction of
being connected by CMC to another intellectual entity through a text-based encounter.”
Rourke, Anderson, Garrison and Archer (1999) introduced the Community of Inquiry
Model that posits that learning occurs through the interaction of three components: cognitive
presence, teacher presence and social presence. They defined social presence as “the ability of
learners to project themselves socially and emotionally in a community of inquiry.” They
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING6
identified three categories of communicative responses that contribute to social presence:
interactive responses (provide evidence that others are attending, such as referencing other’s
posts), affective responses (expressions of emotions, feelings, and mood), and cohesive
responses (build and sustain a sense of group commitment using such things as greetings and
referring to others by name). This study advanced the concept of social presence from that of
individual perception to being situated in a group of learners.
Teacher presence is a component of the community of inquiry model. Some of the roles
of the teacher in this model are to facilitate discourse, motivate, and provide feedback and
encouragement. The question arises as to what impact teacher presence has on social presence.
Swan and Shih (2005) studied the relative importance of the perceived social presence of peers
compared to that of instructors. They found that social presence of the instructor was
significantly correlated with perceived learning (correlation coefficient 0.74) and satisfaction
with the instructor (0.81). Social presence of peers was also correlated with perceived learning
(0.70). While the difference in correlations are small, this study suggests that teacher social
presence is at least as important, if not slightly more important, than peer social presence in
online courses.
Measuring Social Presence
Just as there is no agreed upon definition of social presence theory so too is there no
agreed upon instrument to measure social presence. While several instruments have been
developed to measure social presence, they are adaptations of three main instruments.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING7
The Social Presence Scale (Appendix 1) contains fourteen self-report five point Likert
scale items that “embodied the concept of immediacy” (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). The
internal consistency of the scale was good with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.88.
Social Presence Indicators (Appendix 2) are twelve indicators that reveal the level of
social presence in an online community of inquiry (Rourke, Anderson, Garrison & Archer,
1999). These indicators were designed to analyze transcripts of CMC to detect affective
responses, interactive responses, and cohesive responses. High scores indicate that the online
environment is “warm and collegial” while low scores indicate that it is “cold and impersonal.”
Aggregate interrater reliability was good at 0.95 but varied by the indicator as some, such as use
of humor, required more subjective interpretation.
Social Presence and Privacy Questionnaire was developed by Tu (2002) because he felt
previous instruments were too general or were missing important variables. This instrument
contains seventeen social presence and thirteen privacy items, each with a five point Likert scale.
The five factors that emerged from factor analysis (social context, online communications,
interactivity, system privacy, and feeling of privacy) had Cronbach’s alphas ranging from 0.74 to
0.85 and accounted for 82% of the variance. The specific items on the questionnaire are not
listed in the paper but can be found here:
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~ct68/Publication/2006/CMCQ2006.pdf
Effect of Twitter on Enhancing Social Presence
Creating social presence in online courses has been related to student satisfaction
(Gunawardena and Little, 1997), development of a community of learners (Rourke, Anderson,
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING8
Garrison & Archer, 1999), and perceived learning (Richardson and Swan, 2003). Students rate
social interaction and connection as important attributes of an online course (Dunlap and
Lowenthal, 2009). Therefore, it is important to find ways to establish and maintain social
presence in online courses.
A main factor that has driven the evolution of social presence theory is the evolution of
technology. Students are no longer limited to course management system text-based discussion
boards to interact and socialize. Students now have a broad range of social software
communication tools including text and video messaging, weblogs, podcasts, wikis, social
bookmarking, internet forums, and social networks. Social software can be useful in online
education to facilitate creating knowledge, communicating, sharing resources, and community
building.
Social networking tools are commonly used by students. According to the Pew Research
Center, as of January 2014, 89% of online adults ages 18 to 29 use social networking sites (Pew,
n.d. a). Facebook was the most popular site with 71% of online adults using the service in 2014
while Twitter was used by 23% (Pew, n.d. b). Twitter is a multiplatform microblogging tool.
According to its website, “Twitter is your window to the world. Get real time updates about what
matters to you” (Twitter, n.d.). Twitter enables just-in-time, life-like communication where users
can share, collaborate, ask questions, create, etc. wherever they want, whenever they want and on
whatever device they want. Thus, Twitter could enhance social presence in online courses by
providing students opportunities to connect with other students and teachers and be perceived as
“real.”
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING9
Twitter has been shown to promote social presence in a traditional face-to-face course for
undergraduates (Wakefield, Warren, & Alsobrook, 2011). Twitter was utilized as a tool for
required class discussions. A survey instrument was developed specifically for this study and
contained three subscales: social learning community (Cronbach’s alpha 0.93), comfortable
online communicator (alpha 0.81), and engaged student (alpha 0.80). The variables sense of
community and interactive learning were highly correlated (correlation coefficient 0.9) and
explained 90% of the variance of social learning community. The authors concluded that Twitter
strongly promotes social presence. They further found that Twitter was viewed by approximately
half of the students as useful for improving learning.
Few studies were found evaluating the impact of Twitter on social presence in online
courses. None of the identified studies utilized any of the social presence instruments described
above but they did evaluate elements previously shown to be associated with social presence.
Thoms (2012) incorporated Twitter into an online learning environment for an online
information systems undergraduate course. Twitter was used to “enhance the blogging
experience.” It was used to retrieve course content, microblog about student blogs and course
content, and provide feedback about content. The majority of students on a precourse survey
agreed or strongly agreed that interaction, collaboration, information exchange, and community
would be important aspects of the online course. Furthermore, 72% of students rated their
experience using Twitter in the course as positive. Despite this, after using Twitter during the
course only approximately 30% of students felt that Twitter actually increased interaction (25%
felt it didn’t) and approximately 40% felt it was excellent for building community (15% felt it
wasn’t). The majority of students, though, did feel that Twitter helped them explore and bring
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING10
new information to the course not found in the course textbook. The methodology used by
Thoms was suboptimal. He used Twitter as a broadcast tool and not as an interactive tool.
Students used Twitter hours or days after other students Tweets or blog posts. Students were not
required to Tweet immediately in response to other Tweets or blog posts. I wonder had he
designed the use of Twitter to foster real time exchange if the results of this study would have
been different.
Munoz, et al (2014) evaluated the effect of Twitter on social presence in a multi-ethnic
group of undergraduate pre-service teachers. Students were divided into three groups: online
Blackboard discussion group, online Twitter group, and face-to-face Twitter group. The online
groups were enrolled in the same six-week long online summer class while the face-to-face
group was enrolled in a semester long class. Blackboard and Twitter were used to discuss field
observations. A ten question yes/no survey (not included in the paper) was used to assess student
experiences. Student postings were analyzed to identify themes. Analysis of student postings
revealed five categories: field experience (31% of posts), emotions, relationships with
cooperating teachers, class related, and relationships between students (36%). The online Twitter
group was more likely than the other two groups to communicate with the instructor. Students in
both Twitter groups reported greater feelings that students cared about each other (88% vs 76%
in the Blackboard group). All groups felt a high degree of being connected to others in the course
(75-80%). The analysis of postings demonstrated that the postings of students in the online
Twitter group were more involved and affable than those of the face-to-face Twitter group,
perhaps because the face-to-face group could ask questions and interact with each other during
class time. A contradiction was seen between post analysis and students surveys. When
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING11
surveyed, students in the online Twitter group felt less connected to others and felt their needs as
learners were not being completely met. The authors postulated that perhaps Hispanic and
minority students’ perception of social presence differs from that of White students.
Thoms and Eryilmaz (2015) redesigned the online learning environment from Thoms’
previous study to more seamlessly incorporate Twitter (Thoms, 2012). Students from two
sections (one purely online and one blended) of an information systems course were required to
contribute weekly to Twitter and to an online discussion board based on topics created by the
instructor. The majority of students felt that Twitter increased interaction (76% of online and
60% of blended students) and increased learning (64% and 70%, respectively). Twitter was also
viewed as an excellent tool for building course community (84% and 74%, respectively). The
online discussion board was rated slightly higher for increasing interaction (84% and 87%,
respectively), increasing learning (69% and 91%, respectively), and building course community
(74% and 78%, respectively). No statistical analysis was done comparing these tools.
Conclusion
In summary, these studies seem to show that Twitter can be useful for discovering new
information, increasing communication and interactions with peers and instructors, and
improving emotional bonds and connections between students. Thus, Twitter can be used as a
tool to enhance social presence.
The evidence base for the effects of Twitter on social presence in online learning is
limited by few studies and small numbers of participants in the individual studies. Furthermore,
previously developed social presence instruments were not used in any of the studies.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING12
More studies are needed to better define the role of social media in enhancing social
presence. Twitter is limited to 140 characters and is not popular with younger students (Pew
Research Center, n.d. b). Other platforms like text messaging or Google Hangouts messaging
might be more useful to overcome these limitations and be more consistent with how students
currently communicate with each other.
References
Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to enhance
social presence. Journal of Informational Systems Education, 20(2), 129-135.
Gunawardena, C. N., & Zittle, F. J. (1997). Social presence as a predictor of satisfaction within a
computer‐mediated conferencing environment. American journal of distance education,
11(3), 8-26.
Hart, C. (2012). Factors associated with student persistence in an online program of study: A
review of the literature. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 11(1), 19-42.
Kehrwald, B. (2008). Understanding social presence in text-based online learning environments.
Distance Education, 29(1), 89-106.
Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). The evolution and influence of social presence theory on online
learning. In T. T. Kidd (Ed.), Online education and adult learning: New frontiers for
teaching practices. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING13
Munoz, L. R., Pellefrini-Lafont, C., & Cramer, E. (2014). Using social media in teacher
preparation programs: Twitter as a means to create social presence. Perspectives on
Urban Education, 11(2), 57-69.
National Center for Education Statistics. (2012). Enrollment in Distance Education Courses, by
State: Fall 2012 [Data File]. Retrieved from
http://www.http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2014023
Pew Research Center. (n.d. a). Social media use by age group over time. Retrieved August 14,
2015, from http://www.pewinternet.org/data-trend/social-media/social-media-use-by-age-
group/
Pew Research Center. (n.d. b). Social media update 2014. Retrieved August 14, 2015, from
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014/
Richardson, J. C., and Swan, K. (2003). Examining social presence in online courses in relation
to students’ perceived learning and satisfaction. Journal of Asynchronous Learning
Networks, 7(1), 68-88.
Rourke, L., Anderson, T., Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (1999). Assessing social presence in
asynchronous text-based computer conferencing. Journal of Distance Education, 14(2),
50-71.
Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications.
London: John Wiley & Sons.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING14
Swan, K., & Shih, L. F. (2005). On the nature and development of social presence in online
course discussions. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 9(3), 115-136.
Thoms, B. (2012). Student perceptions of microblogging: Integrating Twitter with blogging to
support learning and interaction. Journal of Information Technology Education:
Innovations in Practice, 11(1), 179-197.
Thoms, B., & Eryilmaz, E. (2015). Introducing a Twitter discussion board to support learning in
online and blended learning environments. Education and Information Technologies, 20,
265-283.
Tu, C.-H. (2000). On-line learning migration: From social learning theory to social presence
theory in a CMC environment. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 2, 27-37.
-----------. (2002). The measurement of social presence in an online learning environment.
International Journal of E-Learning, 1(2), 34-45.
Tu, C.-H., & McIssac, M. (2002). The relationship of social presence and interaction in online
classes. The American Journal of Distance Education, 16(3), 131-150.
Twitter. (n.d.). Twitter. Retrieved August 14, 2015 from https://about.twitter.com/
Wakefield, J. S., Warren, S. J., & Alsobrook, M. (2011). Learning and teaching as
communicative actions: A mixed-methods Twitter study. Knowledge Management & E-
Learning: An International Journal (KM&EL), 3(4), 563-584.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING15
Appendix 1
1. Messages on GlobalEd were impersonal.
2. CMC is an excellent medium for social interaction.
3. I felt comfortable conversing through this text-based medium.
4. I felt comfortable introducing myself on GlobalEd.
5. The introductions enabled me to form a sense of online community.
6. I felt comfortable participating in GlobalEd discussions.
7. The moderators created a feeling of an online community.
8. The moderators facilitated discussions in the GlobalEd conference.
9. Discussions using the medium of CMC tend to be more impersonal than face-to-face
discussions.
10. CMC discussions are more impersonal than audio teleconference discussions.
11. CMC discussions are more impersonal than video teleconference discussions.
THE EFFECT OF TWITTER ON SOCIAL PRESENCE IN ONLINE LEARNING16
12. I felt comfortable interacting with other participants in the conference.
13. I felt that my point of view was acknowledged by other participants in GlobalEd.
14. I was able to form distinct individual impressions of some GlobalEd participants even
though we communicated only via a text-based medium.
Appendix 2
Affective indicators: expressions of emotions, use of humor, self-disclosure
Interactive indicators: continuing a thread, quoting from others’ messages, referring explicitly
to others’ messages, asking questions, complimenting and expressing appreciation, expressing
agreement
Cohesive indicators: vocatives, addresses or refers to the group using inclusive pronouns,
phatics and salutations