Originak teching presence

Terry Anderson, Liam Rourke, Randy Garrison & Walter Archer (2001)

Assessing Teacher Presence in a computer conferencing context

Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5, 2, p1-17.

Functions of the teacher

have always been multifaceted.

1. Designer – planning and administering instruction
2. ‘Facilitator and co-creator of the social environment conducive to active and successful learning’, p2
3. subject matter expert who scaffolds the learning

p3 ‘Fulfilling the complex responsibilities of a teacher necessitates sustained and authentic communication between and among teachers and students. While control must be shared and choices provided, the discourse must also be guided towards higher levels of learning through reflective participation as well as by challenging assumptions and diagnosing misconceptions.’

Authors argue that due to the lean medium, teaching presence critical

Support in the literature for the three roles

Theory

Berge (1995) ( identified the three roles but added a fourth, namely supporting the use of technology) Paulsen (1995), and Mason (1991) also identify three major responsibilities but present authors p4‘ depart …. In terms of how we construct and define sthe social aspects of an educational experience’ ie the creation of the social environment is the responsibility of the student as well as the teacher. In the authors’ model ‘ only the social aspects of the teacher’s messages that directly relate to the content contributions from the student are included in the teaching presence category’

Evidence

Rossman(1999) analysis of over 3000 student end-of –course evaluations from 154 university courses; comments and complaints clustered into three major groupings – teacher responsibility, facilitating discussions and course requirements.

Design & organization

P5 ‘ Building the course in a digital format forces teachers to think through the process , structure, evaluation and interaction components of the course. Much of the learned expectation of classroom norms is not available for either student or teacher use, and thus the teacher is forced to be much more explicit and transparent’ e.g. ‘designing and organizing an appropriate mix of group and individual activities’, ‘ modelling appropriate use of the medium’,’sense of the grand design’ ‘ We concur with Laurillard et al, (2000) that the teacher’s task is to create a narrative path through the mediated instruction and activity set such that students are aware of the explicit and implicit learning goals and activities in which they participate. Macro-level comments about course process and content are thus an important motivation and orientation component of this category of teaching presence.

Facilitating discourse

P7 ; the teacher regularly reads and comments on student postings, constantly searching for ways to support the development of the learning community’ ‘ this component overlaps with many of the behaviours identified in our larger model of social presence’…..’’our facilitating discourse category is more than the facilitation of social activities, ……facilitation of discourse is usually integrated within direct instruction and in situ design of instructional activity’ ‘There presence indicates the teacher is helping to create a positive learning environment’’ e.g. helping students articulate consensus and shared understanding, when these are already implicit in the discussion’ Authors see the idea of the tutor as ‘guide on the side’ as too laissez faire e.g. Salmon’s idea that the moderator of online discourse discussions requires no more academically than a similar level qualification’ Authors argue that insufficient academic competence on the part of the teacher or a reluctance to go beyond a facilitating discourse role is one possible explanation for the reports that online discussion often does not go beyond the sharing of information. P9 ‘ The design of effective learning activities leads to opportunities for students themselves to uncover these misconceptions, but the teacher’s comments and questions as direct instruction are also invaluable’

Method

Target variable – teaching presence

Categories(3) organization & instruction, facilitating discourse, direct instruction

Indicators for each category based on the literature & practice of teaching & learning

Examples of each indicator

Unit of analysis – message ‘Each message posted by an instructor was coded as exhibiting or not exhibiting one or more indicators of each of the three categories of teaching presence’ p11 ‘ Ultimately, the validity of this system will be judged according to two criteria: Does the procedure facilitate the objective quantification of the insights that an observer would gain from an informal reading of the transcripts? And does the procedure reveal additional insights that are not apparent from an informal reading’

Frequencies and percentages calculated for instructor messages of two graduate level distance education courses, one in health the other in education. ( no further details available)

Results

Table 5

Frequencies of teaching presence categories by instructor

Health Course				Education Courseb
f		%		f		%
Instructional Design	31		22.3		12		37.5
Facilitating Discourse	60		43.2		24		75.0
Direct Instruction	107		77.0		28		87.5

Note: ^a n of instructor messages =139.

^b n of instructor messages = 32.

Table 6

Frequency and percentage of messages that included 0, 1, 2, or 3 categories of teaching presence

Graduate Health Coursea				Graduate Education Courseb
f		%		f		%
0 categories	1		0.7		0		0.0
1 category	89		64.0		7		21.9
2 categories	42		30.2		15		46.9
3 categories	7		5.0		10		31.3

Note difference in number of postings by each tutor, one responding to every message, the other allowing some of the students to take over the teaching presence role.

Ice et al, audio feedback

Philip Ice, Reagan Curtis, Perry Phillips, & John Wells (2007)

Using asynchronous audio feedback to enhance teaching presence and students sense of community.

Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11 (2), 3-25.

Text based online as a medium

Detached and impersonal (refs, 36,37)

Realness online

Deficit theories of online communication (refs 9,10,11,12)- P4 Online ‘ interactions occur in disembodied form’ ‘this narrow interpretation discounts the ability of learners to conceptualize being as anything other than a physical construct’

The teacher

Role

Berge (1995(– 4 roles for the tutor )

Pedagogical	Profession-Inspirer	Promote professional dialogue among online learners
	Feedback-giver
	Interaction - facilitator	Facilitate peer interaction
Social	Social rapport builder	Build online learning community

Teacher online

Richardson & Swan (2002) Regressions analysis, 17 courses,

· 46% determines the relationship between perceived social presence and perceived learning ,

· 45% perceived learning and overall satisfaction with the instructor

· 36% perception of social presence and teacher presence in terms of amount and/or quality of the interaction.

Arbaugh(2001) instructor immediacy a strong predictor of student learning Based on Gorham(1988) verbal teacher immediacy scale, eg. Use of personal examples, humour,openness towards and encouragement of student discussion.

How to enhance teacher immediacy ?

Jelfs and Whitelock (2000) used preprogrammed auditory feedback for navigation links, students self reported that it was important for their success.

Therefore for the present study

Method

Audio feedback using Audacity, in emails to the entire class, or to small groups & feedback to individual students. Half personal feedback as text, half as audio. Masters and doctoral students (22)

Nested mixed methods research design ( quant nested inside the qual).

Data sources

1. unsolicited comments during course (16 emails from 14 students)

2. post course survey (satisfaction , perceived learning, sense of community, effectiveness of audio, I of these was an open question and analysis then informed the interview)

3. post course interview (asked about impressions of the course and the use of each type of feedback medium)

4. assessment material( based on Bloom’s taxonomy – see appendix B)

Thematic analysis, interpretive and iterative.

Results

1. Unsolicited feedback 14/16 expressed a high degree of satisfaction with the medium. 2 reported technical problems.

2. End of course survey (31 respondents)

26/31 indicated that they belived audio feedback to be more effective than written feedback

Open comment 20/31 highly positive and cited audio feedback as a primary reason for being satisafied with the course

3. Semi structured interview – 4 themes

a. Ability to understand nuance (n=19)

p13 ‘ in general, students believed that verbal feedback gave them increased insight into what the instructor was attempting to convey’.

e.g. “I would undesrand what they were saying but not the way they were trying to say it’ ‘it was all in your voice’

“to answer what I think about this I need to tell you what I did. I’ve taught one online class for my department …. Well two if you count the one I am just finishing, so obviously I was fascinated when I got the first audio files along with my work. But I didn’t want to just jump in because it was something new. What I did was sit down and transcribe what you sent over and then I looked at it. I looked at it and listened to the files again and kept doing this for a while. What I realized is that it is two completely different things. …. When I looked at the transcription there was no stress placed on any of the words or sentences. The I tried putting the stress there by adding in caps or exclamation marks and I wondered if I would have thought that you might have been yelling or something if I would have read it that way. What I figured out was that there was really no way you could have gotten the same info across in the same way’ ‘We lose so much in the written word sometimes and I think maybe we haven’t thought about that enough in our online teaching’

b. feelings of increased involvement (n=15)

e.g. ‘you feel that you are at home in your own little bubble and you are telegraphing out to all these other bubbles that other people are sitting in. The between all of you there is this cold wall type thing. It’s the course, the technology, all that stuff that makes the course. There is this barrier there. Now some of that has went away a little when we did things like being in chats, but its still kind of unreal you know?...... That said, I get this file where you put in this audio and boom! It was all a big change for me you know? It was like the bubble started getting popped in all these different places and made me feel like you were reaching in there and touching me. I know that’s probably kind of silly, but just your voice alone made me feel like it was a real class and not this big technology construct that was locking us into its parts’

c. Content retention (n=12)

9/12 related their perception to learning style

d. Instructor caring

e.g. ‘ ‘feeling the tone of your voice and knowing more about what you were trying to say than I got just the words on paper…err rather on screen.. well whatever………it gave me some idea of who you were and that made me want to be more involved…… it may me feel like you really cared about what was going on’

4. Assessment

P17/18 ‘Coding of documents revealed that students were far more likely to apply higher order thinking and problem solving skills to content for which they had received audio feedback’

Gonzales - verbal mimicry

Gonzales, A.L., Hancock, J.T., and Pennebaker, J.L.(2009).

Language style matching as a predictor of social dynamics in small groups

Communication Research, 37(1), 3-19

Main aim to validate an algorithmic method for measuring the amount of linguistic style matching as an p13’ efficient means of assessing mimicry from language and to determine whether such a metric could predict two social dynamics, group cohesiveness & task performance

Literature review on social interaction/affinity and mimicry and also synchrony.

Bernieri & Rosenthal, 1991 – p4 ‘people imitate each other’s nonverbal movements and gestures’

Association with positive relationships Chartagh & Burgh (1999)

More refs in the last paragraph of p5.

Pickering& Garrod (2004)

Verbal mimicry – ‘at the level of syntatctic structure or word-by-word matching’

Linked to team performance ( Koylowski & Ilgen, 2006)

Measuring verbal mimicry

requires a micro approach therefore very time consuming and difficult to measure reliably

This article proposes an automated alternative the linguistic style (LSM) metric based on two characteristics of language

1. ‘Entire conversations can be parsed into psychologically relevant dimensions quickly and with a high degree of accuracy’
2. Function words – ‘These do not contain semantic information rather they are the backbone of language and are characterised by’
• High frequency
• Context independent
• Non consciously ( KRO – how known?- ?Pennebaker & King, 1999, Chung & Pennebeker (2007 ) produced, therefore difficult for an individual to manipulate

The LSM measures the degree to which two or more participants are producing similar rates of function words – 9 categories

Category	Examples
1. Adverb	Completly, often
2. Article	A,an,the
3. Auxillary verb	Am,have
4. conjunction	And, but, or
5. Indefinite pronoun	It, those
6. negation	No, not, never
7. Personal pronoun	I, you, we
8. preposition	At, for, into
9. quantifier	All, few, some

RQs

• Does verbal mimicry occur at equal rates in FTF groups and online groups?
• Does LTM predict cohesiveness and task performance

Method

Same sex groups (4-6) people, 34 CMC, 41 FTF. Strangers. Material reward.

10 minutes socialising

20 minutes complex information searching task require some co-operation but not collaboration as understood for the purposes of my thesis.

5 minutes post task discussion

at the end each participant was given an Interaction Rating questionnaire.

Results & Discussion

Note these are based on correlations

• LSM metric predictive of group cohesiveness irrespective of medium (CMC and FTF) , gender and group size. The more individuals liked a group, the more members of the group used the same function words.

• There was a positive relationship between LSM and task performance but only for the FTF groups

Other relationships

1. Language and cohesiveness

• Word count +
• First person plural (we) - authors explained this unexpected result as follows . Perhaps it is used deliberately in an otherwise non cohesive group.

2. Language and task performance

• Future orientated ( could, would, should, must, ought, and will) +
• Use of achievement orientated words ( success) - authors explained this unexpected result as follows . Perhaps it is used deliberately in an otherwise non cohesive group.

paralanguage L& S (1992)

Lea, M & Spears, R. (1992)

Paralanguage and Social Perception in Computer-Mediated Communication

Journal of Organizational Computing, 2(3&4), 321-341

Repeat reading required!

Reviews cues filtered out view

P322/323

‘Information about the communicators themselves – their status, authority, personality, mood, motivations and intentions – are also thought to be largely absent in CMC ( Kiesler, 1986). ‘

Offers an alternative view

Argues that

Paralanguage

P322 ‘paralanguage is one source of information contained in CMC that people use to form impressions of each other when communicating. Furthermore, the interpretation of paralinguistic cues, ….. is influenced by the specific social context in which CMC is situated’ ….

P324 specifically ‘ paralanguage is also present in written communication where it takes the form of typographical marks and other features of text that, although they have no lexical meaning, nevertheless signify socially shared meanings.

Social cognition and SIDE

Links this argument to social cognition and eventually to SIDE. P338 ‘ The SIDE approach to analysisng group processes in CMC places emphasis on cognitive representation of the group rather than on sociostructtural variables such as group size and composition

.

P324 ‘ Experiments into social cognition have revealed some of the processes by which we tend to make significant inferences about people’s personality, emotional state, and behavioural intentions on the basis of mimimal cues’ (Fiske and taylor, 1984) .. The over attribution of enduring traits occurs particularl;y where the behavioural cues are consistently observed, and other information is in short supply (Antaki, 1989)

p324/325

‘communicators will use whatever cues are available to construct impressions of each other; a relative lack of cues will place greater reliance on social categorization processes to interpret the available information so as to form an adequate social context. An implication of this argument is that a relatively simple manipulation of the available cues will exert powerful effects on the impressions formed by interactants. A proposal that is consistent with the authors views on de-individuation in CMC.

Study 1 – communication is delivered to computer screen

Hypoth: If paralanguage provides sufficient cues that contribute to impression formation, significant differences in the perception of message senders should be observed depending on which cues, if any, were present.

2 groups 24 novice, 24 expert e-mail users

Participants encouraged to form an overall impression of the sender

IVs 4 conditions ( 4 messages each, all 16 selected from a public bulletin board edited to manipulate the four conditions. Messages 49-78 in length )

1. Misspelling in two of the words

2. Mistyping in two of the words

3. ! added at the end of 1 sentence and elipse at the end of the other

4. control

DV

16 item 7 point rating scale which asked about the attributes of the interactant – warmth, intelligence, dominance, flexibility, competence, originality, liveliness, self-confidence, verbal fleuncey, responsibility, assertiveness, frredom from inhibitions, inner strength and attractiveness.

Asked to rate how much they thought they would like the sender

Asked to rate how much they would enjoy working with them

Note : therefore a lot of demand characteristics

Results

P328 ‘ Both novice and experienced electronic mail users were found to have attended to the paralinguistic cues contained in the sample messages, and to have formed impressions of the personality of message senders that varied according to the type of cue made available to them’

Stage 2 – participants required to engage in group ( 3 participant) discussions – analysis based on spontaneously generated online discussions

Hypoth: p330 ‘ Paralanguage will be evaluated differently by communicators depending on whether group identity or individual identity is made salient’ i.e paralanguage will be interpreted as prototypical in group salience conditions and as competitive individualism’

Manipulation of context ( social and physical) , 4 conditions based on 2 factors

Social – Encouraged/Discouraged to feel part of a work group or ( using we us, I,me & appropriate design of message header, the way in which the task was introduced, etc)

Physical Isolating individuals/ co-present

DVs

1. Transcrips inspected for evidence of paralanguage – ellipses, inverted commas, quotation marks, and exclamation marks. Sequences were double-weighted. Mean (paralanguage devices combined) counts for each of the four conditions

2. Person-perception scales – global measures of attraction and affect, disinhibition and selected items from stage 1 – warm, dominant, unihibited, responsible’likeable and competent – embedded in a questionnaire that assessed subjects’ opinions on the discussion topics and towards the experimental task.

Results

P333 the patterns of correlations ( DV 1 with DV2 ) is in accordance with the hypothesis concerning the social attraction response to paralanguage users under conditions of high group salience as distict from individualistic and competitive responses under conditions of low group salience ( KRO how to do groups work to create salience …. ? social presence) p335 ‘when visual cues are available, the effects of a group context on the perception of paralinguistic cues in CMC is reduced, as predicted’

Discussion

Impression forming behaviors were consitently observed even when cues were subltle or infrequent .

P335 ‘ many of the largest effects were recorded on those scales that would relate most closely to task performance and co-operative working between individuals

P336 ‘ The nature of these effects was predicted by social identity theory, which holds that when a relevant group membership is made salient to individuals, the positive attributes of the group are conferred on the self, and people tend to act in terms of that group identity. As a consequence of the perceived positive group identity, an individual’s behaviour tends to be in the direction of the prevailing group norms, and the behaviour of the group tends to be perceived in terms of the behaviour of the group. Attraction to the group will be high under these conditions and the adoption of specific communication styles, such as the use of paralanguage, will be seen as prototypical for the group and will be evaluated positively’

Implications for the design of CMCs, implementation and use

P337 ‘ identifying the social context in which any given CMC takes place is essential for predicting the outcomes of the CMC. It follows from this that the establishment of a social context, which is appropriate in terms of individual, group and organizational (KRO – learning) goals and task, is an important prerequisite for successful CMC.

P338 ‘attention should be paid to the provision of more advanced facilities for representing and communicating social information because our analysis suggests that the technology, and the conditions in which it is typically used, combine to form a communication environment that is particularly suited to communicating and reinforcing relevant group and organizational norms’

mediated immediacy

Patrick B. O’Sullivan, Stephen K. Hunt, Lance R. Lippert (2004)

Mediated Immediacy, A Language of Affiliation in a technological Age

Journal of Language and Social Psychology,23,464-490

Mediated immediacy

proposed as a p468 ‘way to better understand the communicative practices that convey affiliation and foster relationships via communication technologies’

defined as p471 ‘ communicative clues in mediated channels that can shape perceptions of psychological closeness between interactants. Stated another way, immediacy cues can be seen as a language of affiliation’

Authors, alongside Walther, Loh & Granta began to focus on this area. This paper reviews idea of CMC as a relational space from a historical perspective ( 3 stages) before describing how immediacy may enhance learning and determining how to identify it for CMC.

Some notes

Draws attention to the difference between novice and expert users of mediated communication and comments on how expertise develops.

Based on instructional learning through a tutor mediated website . No collaborative learning but still relevant.

CMC from efficiency to affiliation ( 3 stages)

1. Only effective for information exchange
2. Then , could be effective for personal relationships
3. Now attention on p465‘understanding the communication practices that contribute to effective CMC use in social and personal relationships’

Above roughly based on four underlying themes in the research literature namely , novice versus expert users, co-presence, conventional non-verbals, frequent interaction

Stage 1 p466 ‘when compared to face-to-face CMC was considered inferior in conveying elements of interaction considered essential for developing and maintaining relationships, which depended heavily on non-verbal communication and co-presence ( e.g. Lea & Spears, 1995) ie “conventional wisdom was that CMC was ineffective and inappropriate for anything other than clear, unequivocal information exchange’

Stage 2 Lea & Spears, 1995 can be identified as watershed paper between stage 1 and stage 2. new area of study p466 ‘ that bridged traditional interpersonal communication scholarship, with its focus on verbal and non-verbal communication in face-to-face dyads (often in relationships) and scholarship on communication technologies ( including early work in organizational CMC). P466-467 ‘ documentation of widespread and successful relationships based on CMC suggested that elements long considered essential for anything labelled a relationship (co-presence, conventional non-verbals, frequent interaction) may not be as indispensable as scholars had assumed’

Stage 3 As technologies gained new capabilities ( authors include font colour an other presentational affordances here as well as the ability to attach a photo etc. P468 ‘ the artefacts of the channels themselves were appropriated as expressive devices, and are applied to interpersonal purposes, in ways that become a language in and of themselves’. At the same time as users move from novice to expert they can choose to eshew the affordances of certain channels when they are perceived as not contributing to a personal relational goal is they gradually become skilled choosers and users of channels.

i.e. Ideas about the importance of media richness changed and the focus moved from the technological ( as the channel for interaction) to a more comprehensive understanding of mediated communication’ In trun this led to a view that users could be guided on tactical use ( KRO however it di not address the voluntary)

Immediacy

Face-to-face

P469 ‘ immediacy refers to communicative behaviours that reduce physical or psychological distance and foster affiliation ( Mehrabian, 1971). Mehrabian (1971) linked immediacy to an approach-avoidance construct – the proposition that people generally approach things that they like and avoid things that they dislike or that induce fear. Scholars have identified a range of nonverbal and verbal behaviours that communicate immediacy (Anderson & Anderson, 1982; Barringer & McCroskey, 2000; Gorham, 1988; Mehrabian, 1971). Immediacy includes non linguistic approach behaviours, signals of availability for communication, and communication of interpersonal closeness.

Non-verbal immediacy behaviours include reducing physical distance, displaying relaxed postures, and movements, using gestures, smiling, using vocal variety, and engaging in eye contact during interactions.

Verbal immediacy behaviours include using personal examples, asking questions, using humour, addressing others by name, and using inclusive pronouns ( we vs I)

That ‘most people would tend to be positive about someone who smiles, is expressive, appears relaxed, addressed them by name, asks them questions, and discloses personal anecdotes’ seems a reasonable assumption.

Immediacy and learning

P469 “Research on immediacy in instructional settings consistently has found a positive and robust relationship between frequency of immediacy behaviour and a range of desired educational outcomes ( Chrisophel, 1990).

Range of measures and references are at the bottom of page 469

Explanatory models

• 4 step model: teacher immediacy is related to arousal, which is related to attention, which is related to memory, which is related to cognitive learning (Kelley & Gorham (1988)
• motivational. Teacher immediacy firstly directly affects students’ state motivation, which then positively affects their learning. ( Christophel, 1990)
• affective learning model – immediacy’s influence on cognitive learning is mediated by affective learning ( Rodriguez, Plax, & Kearney, 1996)

‘despite differences in the models, the literature indicates that immediacy plays an important role in student arousal, affect, motivation and learning (LaRose & Whitten, 2000).

Mediated Immediacy

P470 ‘The implicit assumption that immediacy only occurs face-to-face ignores the important and increasingly pervasive role of technologically mediated communication (O’Sullivan et al, 2001).

Bottom p 470 for references to date including Walther, Loh & Granka in press)

Led to 3 studies looking specifically at immediacy

Study 1 investigating the forms of mediated immediacy, Sullivan et al (2001)

RQ: ‘what forms can immediacy cues take in mediated communication channels?’

Participants: 24 relatively experienced uni students 18-24 into 3 focus groups

Text based communication

Web based & multi-media communication

Mass media

Each focus group provided with a widely used conventional definition of immediacy and then asked to describe what communication practices ( if any) convey immediacy via their target focus

Cyclic process of coding & concensus by the researchers led to 2 emergent macrocategories that encompassed all microcategories

1. Approachability ( you can approach me)
2. Regard for others ( I am approaching you)

Approachability and micro categories

1. Self-disclosure Intentionally revealing personal information that allows others to feel that they know source

e.g. referring to experiences outside official role, photos portraying experiences outside official role

2. Expressiveness Varying emphasis, intensity, vividness, tone of message

e.g. using vocal inflection using punctuation using colors

3. Accessibility Being accessible for communication

•e.g. indicating availability, providing contact information, setting time aside for contacts

4. Informality Portraying informality and casualness

e.g. informal postures/settings in images, use of slang, colloquialisms

5. Similarity Displaying personality qualities/ personal history shared by receiver

e.g. revealing interests, experiences, opinions, backgrounds, and so on, that match receivers’

6. Familiarity Providing for repeated contacts over time

e.g. frequent encounters and/or interactions

7. Humor Using humor

eg sharing jokes, playful interactions

8. Attractiveness Displaying characteristics perceived as appealing

eg presenting attractive appearance displaying appealing personality

9. Expertise Displaying competence and skill related to source’s role

e.g. demonstrating knowledge

Regard and micro categories

1. Personalness Conveying that source views receivers as individualise.

e.g using synchronous, richer channels remembering, using names incorporating knowledge of person in interactions

2. Engagement Indicating attentiveness and practicing responsiveness to receivers

e.g. returning phone messages/e-mails listening to/reading carefully messages inviting future interaction

3. Helpfulness Assisting receivers’ efforts to pursue needs and goals

e.g. clearly designed Web site to aid navigation, providing needed into on outgoing messages

4. Politeness Following etiquette, courtesies, and other communication procedural norms

e.g. word choices practicing common courtesies in interactions

There is no assumption that either the macro or the micro categories are independent of each other.

Study 2 appliying the categories identified by study 1 to look at anxiety, uncertainty, attitudes to course and instructor

Uses Anxiety-Uncertainty Management theory ( Gudykurst, 1988, 1995), an intercultural communication theory, as the theoretical framework for the study. The assumption being that p474 ‘ students encountering a new course, new instructor and the relatively new use of communication technology for instruction would experience anxiety and uncertainty similar to those encountering individuals in an unfamiliar culture’

Participants: 95 undergraduates randomly assigned to one of two websites ( Matched for content, links and instructor with one having high immediacy and the other low immediacy)

High immediacy: colour, graphics, photo, language incorporated first and second person pronouns, informed friendly language. Links to instructor and personal homepage’

Hypotheses:

Mediated immediacy cues which convey the instructors approachability and regard will be

H1 negatively related to anxiety ( NS)

H2 negatively related to uncertainty(Sig)

H3 positively related to attitudes (Sig)

H4 positively related to the instructor (Sig).

Web site with multiple immediacy cues produced lower uncertainty and higher motivation for the course and more positive attitudes toward the course and instructor i.e results consistent with findings from face to face ( Christophel, 1990). These results are consistent with a view that immediacy cues can be conveyed effectively via mediated channels and that mediated immediacy can shape the perceptions of the communicator.

Study 3 Linguistic & non linguistic text based immediacy cues – how do they impact.

Text based immediacy cues identified in study 1 can be organised into

1. Those dealing with language

2. Those dealing with visual presentation ( non linguistic) setting for the language.

Used 4 hypothetical websites ( linguistic immediacy high/low, visual presentation high/low) in a 2x2 design.

170 participants randomly assigned to one condition. Each explored the assigned website for 15-20 minutes then filled out an instrument designed to measure stuudents’ appraisal of immediacy. Dependent variable was the motivation to take the course.

Results

Main effect	Web site immediacy	Motivation to take the course	Instructor appraisal
Presentational immediacy	√	√
Linguistic immediacy	√		√

Interestingly, based on this study ( which does not involve anything collaborative) linguistic immediacy does not have any influence on motivation to take the course

Conclusion

P485

‘these research studies have begun to identify specific forms of mediated immediacy as well as illuminating their role in shaping receivers attitudes and perceptions of the source’

p486 ‘immediacy cues ( mediated and f-f) could be viewed as the relational portion of a message.

Findings suggest that ‘the long standing linkage of message content to verbal communication and relational messages to non-verbal communication should be re-examined , which might prompt new insights into the intertwined roles of verbal and non verbal communication’