Exploring indicators of teaching presence in online learning from older adult learners’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

Teaching presence is critical to online student success. While progress has been made in conceptualising and researching teaching presence, little is known about how it is experienced by older adult online learners. This article explores teaching presence indicators for older adult learners (55+ years old) in online courses, using the conceptual framework of teaching presence, a dimension of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework as a guide. Interview data reveal that (a) not all indicators were experienced equally, (b) multiple representations exist for each of the perceived indicators, and (c) some indicators of the CoI framework were inaccessible or absent from the view of older adults, although they were considered important. This study contributes to advancing a positive learning experience for older adults in online learning. More specifically, it addresses how to design online learning for older adult learners from a teaching presence lens.

KEYWORDS:

• Online course
• learner experience
• older adults
• teaching presence
• teacher presence

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants for participating in the interviews and sharing their experiences. We are grateful to the instructors for sharing the course with us. We also thank the MU Extension team at the University of Missouri, especially Dr Jessica Gordon for supporting this project. Furthermore, we are grateful to the Information Experience lab, Kanupriya Singh and Matin Qazi for supporting the data collection and analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the University of Missouri, MU Extension.

Notes on contributors

Ngoc-Minh Pham

Ngoc-Minh Pham is a learning science and analytics specialist at the University of Florida. She holds a PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master’s degree from Lehigh University, where she was a Fulbright scholar. Her research focuses on enhancing online learning experiences through methods such as learning analytics, scaffolding, problem-based learning, social presence enhancement and cutting-edge technologies such as augmented and virtual reality.

Isa Jahnke

Isa Jahnke is Professor of Learning Technologies and Founding Vice-President for Academic and International Affairs of the University of Technology Nuremberg, Germany. Previously, she was a professor and Director of the Information Experience Lab at the University of Missouri-Columbia, United States (2015–21), Professor of Interactive Media and Learning at Umeå University, Sweden (2011–15) and Assistant Professor at TU Dortmund University (2008–11). Her research interests are learning experience design, digital learning and active learning strategies with digital technologies.