Research has shown high levels of instructor social presence creates a social-emotional rich online climate giving students a sense a belonging and their instructor being real and being present. Hence, this study sought to examine how instructors use instructional actions, communication strategies, and immediacy behaviors to establish, introduce and sustain instructor social presence during the design and facilitation of an online learning environment. Ten online instructors, with an average of 9 years of online teaching experience, were twice interviewed using a semi-structured interview approach. Thematic data analysis was conducted using an a priori coding approach derived from existing teaching and social presence indicators and social presence conceptual maps. My data analysis revealed instructor social presence is constructed in a systematic process consisting of three phases: establishing instructor social presence, introducing social presence, and sustaining instructor social presence. Along with these phases, six categories were identified depicting the instructional actions, communication strategies, and immediacy behaviors instructors used to construct instructor social presence. These categories include course design and structure, communication and availability, introductions and welcoming activities, affective communication, assignment feedback, and consistent and informal communications.Lastly, multiple indicators were identified in each of these categories resulting in 17 instructor social presence indicators: online learning frameworks, collaborative spaces and activities, consistent structure, communication norms, instructor availability, introduction and announcements, welcoming activities, friendly and empathetic tone, real and approachable, acknowledgement and encouragement, one-on-one communication, storytelling and humor, self- disclosure, discussion forums, solicit student feedback, frequent announcements and reminders and conversational style.Overall, this study builds upon the existing instructor social presence literature and offers new insights including a systematic approach to constructing instructor social presence in an online learning environment. As a result of this research, an Instructors Social Presence (ISP) framework was created. This framework offers individuals a systematic guide to establish, introduce, and sustain instructor social presence resulting in a social-emotional rich online educational experience. Moreover, these results have implications for online institutions' leadership and administration, online instructors, instructional designers or course designers and implications for further research.
Read
