The Relationship Between Social Presence, Student Satisfaction and Academic Achievement in Fully Online Asynchronous Courses

Authors

Martin Rodriguez, University of Texas at Brownsville

Date of Award

4-2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Curriculum & Instruction

First Advisor

Dr. Maria Elena Corbeil

Second Advisor

Dr. Joseph Rene Corbeil

Third Advisor

Dr. Ming-Tsan Lu

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to describe the strength and direction of the relationship between social presence and student success as measured by student satisfaction and academic achievement in fully online asynchronous courses. A correlational research design was utilized to study the relationship between social presence, student satisfaction, and academic achievement. The participants in this study are a convenience sample of 104 undergraduate level students enrolled in fully online asynchronous courses at The University of Texas at Brownsville from August to December 2014. The data for the participants’ perception of social presence and student satisfaction were elicited through two self-reporting instruments. Additionally, participants were asked to allow the researcher access to their end-of-semester grades to measure academic achievement. The data were analyzed using the following analyses: (1) bivariate analyses using the Pearson product-moment correlation technique to determine the strength and direction of the relationship between each of the three variables; and (2) an Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) was conducted for each of the items that comprised both the Social Presence Scale (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997) and the Student Satisfaction Scale (Gunawardena & Zittle, 1997). Lastly, an independent-samples t-test was performed to compare the impact of social presence scores between bilingual and monolingual participants. To test the first research hypothesis, a Pearson product-moment correlation technique was used to test the relationship between social presence and student satisfaction in fully online asynchronous courses. It yielded: a correlation coefficients of r = .718 (df = 102), p < .001, indicating that there is a positive significant correlation between social presence and student satisfaction in fully online asynchronous courses at .001 level of significance. To test the second research hypothesis, a Pearson product-moment correlation technique was used to test the relationship between student satisfaction and academic achievement in fully online asynchronous courses. It yielded: a correlation coefficients of r =.123 (df = 102), p = .212, indicating that there is no significant correlation between student satisfaction and academic achievement in fully online asynchronous courses. To test the third research hypothesis, a Pearson product-moment correlation technique was used to test the relationship between student satisfaction and academic achievement in fully online asynchronous courses. It yielded correlation coefficients of r = .259 (df = 102), p< .001, indicating that there is a positive significant correlation between social presence and academic achievement in fully online asynchronous courses at .001 level of significance.

Comments

Copyright 2015 Martin Rodriguez. All Rights Reserved.

Granting Institution

University of Texas Brownsville