An exploration of social presence amongst first year undergraduate students in a fully asynchronous web-based course: a case at the University of South Africa

Abstract

With the growing trends in favour of online learning in higher education, further research is needed on the social experiences of students enrolled in online courses. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the ways in which social presence manifested itself amongst first-year undergraduate students who had studied in a fully asynchronous web-based course at Unisa in 2014. The Community of Inquiry framework, which posits that meaningful online learning experience results from interaction of cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence, guided this inquiry. Purposive sampling was utilised to select 18 participants who met the selection criteria. Through semi-structured, telephonic interviews, couched with the social constructivism stance, the participants‟ perceptions of social presence were thematically analysed. The findings revealed that first-year online undergraduate students manifested social presence through affective responses, interactive responses, group cohesion, interaction, instructor presence and internet access. Overall, social presence manifested itself through participation and interaction within the discussion forums. The findings specified further that a blended online learning approach can be crucial in meeting the learning needs of some students. Furthermore, the findings alluded to a lack of interaction and feedback from the online instructors. In addition, the findings revealed a limitation in terms of internet access, particularly for students in rural areas, which is of concern in an ODL milieu heading online. Implications of the study findings, study limitations and avenues for future research are discussed.