Pathway to presence: an investigation of ambient awareness in online learning environments

ABSTRACT

Due to the pervasiveness of online technology, especially social media and social networking sites (SNS) like Twitter and Facebook were are surrounded by a constant stream of information about other individuals. On the other hand, even though distance and online learning has become mainstream, there are still concerns leveled at many of these educational offerings, one of them being the relative social isolation of online and distance students. In this study, we investigate if and how ambient awareness, a concept originated in research in interpersonal effects of SNS, can play an important role in how salient social impressions of peers emerge and how this leads to perceptions of social presence among students. To this end, we use an impression formation paradigm in a four-week online distance course (N = 51). We found that students were able to form impressions of their peers through ambient awareness. These impressions differed in prevalence from the ones gathered through direct social interaction. In a larger second sample (N = 169), we find ambient awareness to be a mediator between the sociability of the learning environment and perceptions of social presence. Implications, limitations and suggestions for further research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Ambient awareness
• impression formation
• social presence
• online learning
• distance education
• SIPS

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Weidlich

Joshua Weidlich is a PhD student at the Department of Instructional Technology & Media at FernUniversität in Hagen, as well as research faculty at the Department of Technology-Enhanced Learning at University of Education, Heidelberg. His PhD research focuses on investigating how social presence emerges in environments of online distance learning, how it affects learning, and how social presence can be facilitated.

Theo J. Bastiaens

Theo J. Bastiaens is Professor of Educational Technology and Rector Magnificus at Open University in Heerlen, the Netherlands. His research is concerned with distance education, instructional design and innovative learning technology.