Teaching and social presences supporting basic needs satisfaction in online learning environments: How can presences and basic needs happily meet online?

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2022.104432Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Teaching and social presences can serve as online social-contextual support mechanisms in online learning environments.

  • Teaching presence and social presence were both significant positive predictors of perceived basic psychological needs.

  • Teaching presence was a stronger predictor of competence though it contributed to the prediction of the other two needs.

  • Social presence was a stronger predictor of relatedness and autonomy.

  • To satisfy basic needs, online educators can ensure teaching and social presences are optimally perceived by students.

Abstract

This study examined the hypothesized relationships between perceived teaching presence and social presence accounting for social-contextual factors in online learning environments and online students' basic psychological needs satisfaction. Participants enrolled in online courses at universities in the United States responded to an online survey and the survey data (N = 462) were analyzed using three hierarchical multiple regressions. Findings indicated that perceived teaching presence was a significant positive predictor of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, with greater contribution than social presence to the perceived satisfaction of the need for competence. Social presence was also a significant positive predictor of the three basic psychological needs, with greater contributions than teaching presence to the perceived satisfaction of the needs for autonomy and relatedness. These results point to the significance of both teaching presence and social presence as two key online presences that can positively influence students' basic psychological needs satisfaction, which is known to be crucial to higher-quality self-determined motivation and engagement. Our findings have implications for CoI theory development and practical implications for online teaching and learning.

Introduction

Online education has been growing exponentially, especially in higher education settings (Hsu et al., 2019; Martin et al., 2019). With the continuing increase in the popularity of online education, serious concerns regarding the quality of online courses and programs have also emerged (Caskurlu et al., 2020; Kozan & Richardson, 2014a, 2014b). Online education is not without its challenges, the most obvious being lack of face-to-face and real-time interactions with peers and instructors (Broadbent, 2017; Caskurlu et al., 2020; Sherblom, 2010; Wang et al., 2019). Such unique characteristics of online education are likely to influence students' basic psychological needs (Chen & Jang, 2010; Hsu et al., 2019). The current study examined the hypothesized supportive effects of teaching and social presences on the satisfaction of online students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We postulate that these two Community of Inquiry (CoI) presences (i.e., teaching and social presences) integral in online learning environments are theoretically capable of providing need-supportive social-contextual conditions, as posited by Self-Determination Theory (SDT), and they can theoretically serve to satisfy students' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Chen & Jang, 2010; Hsu et al., 2019). We argue that when online students are given clear goals and expectations, provided with clear instructions on how to participate in learning activities, presented a clear course structure with clear due dates, and provided with instructor facilitation and feedback (i.e., teaching presence) (Garrison, 2011), they can know exactly what they need to do, how to do it, and by when to do it. As a result, they can develop a sense of control over their online learning process since they have opportunities for self-direction, being able to make their own plans, self-endorse their own decisions along the way and take ownership of their own learning, which is directly linked with the basic psychological need for autonomy (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020). Similarly, when the online course instructor helps the students understand course topics, keeps them engaged in learning tasks and activities, helps them clarify their thinking and learn the course content, and enables them to understand how much learning progress they have achieved in the course (i.e., teaching presence) (Garrison, 2011), online students can develop a sense of mastery, effectiveness, and achievement, which is directly linked with the basic psychological need for competence (Ryan & Deci, 2017; Vansteenkiste et al., 2020). We also argue that feeling belonging or connected to an online learning group, having a group identity, communicating and interacting openly and comfortably with other online participants, and collaborating with others for accomplishing common goals (i.e., social presence) (Garrison, 2011) are directly linked with the basic psychological need for relatedness since relatedness as an SDT construct refers to “feeling connected and involved with others and having a sense of belonging” (Ryan & Deci, 2017, p. 86). This study, to our best knowledge, is the first to examine online social-contextual conditions viewed through the lens of two specific CoI presences in relation to basic psychological needs satisfaction in online learning environments.

Teaching and social presences are two key support mechanisms that can account for social-contextual conditions in online learning environments in relation to students' basic psychological needs satisfaction. Teaching presence with its design and organization, facilitation, and direct instruction components was theoretically hypothesized in this study to contribute primarily to the perceived satisfaction of the basic needs for autonomy and competence (see Fig. 1). Although teaching presence is also assumed in the CoI to contribute to the development of a sense of community through instructor actions, there is only one teaching presence item in the CoI survey about instructor actions reinforcing a sense of community among online students, which could be theoretically associated with the basic need for relatedness. Therefore, we used teaching presence to primarily explain autonomy and competence rather than relatedness.

Social presence with its affective expression, open communication, and group cohesion components was hypothesized to contribute primarily to the perceived satisfaction of relatedness (see Fig. 2). There is only one social presence item that is about one's sense of being acknowledged by others, which could be theoretically associated with the basic need for autonomy and there is no social presence indicator that could be theoretically associated with the basic psychological need for competence. Therefore, we used social presence to primarily explain the basic need for relatedness. Social presence has been empirically studied in online learning environments and has been positively associated with important student outcomes including online student satisfaction and online perceived and actual learning (Richardson et al., 2017). Relatedness, although less explicitly studied when compared to autonomy and competence in the relevant literature, has also been empirically examined in relation to different antecedents and outcomes across learning environments (Filak & Sheldon, 2008; Trenshaw et al., 2016). However, no study has attempted to provide empirical evidence for the theoretical relationships between social presence and relatedness, which was one of the goals of this study. This study is the first to attempt to demonstrate such an empirical relationship between the CoI's social presence and the SDT's relatedness in online learning environments.

Based on all these theoretical relationships and prior research showing the positive impact of contextual support on basic needs satisfaction in online learning environments (Chen & Jang, 2010; Hsu et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019), we aimed to investigate the extent to which teaching presence would positively predict perceived autonomy and competence and the extent to which social presence would positively predict perceived relatedness in online learning environments.

SDT research on basic psychological needs satisfaction in academic settings indicates that autonomy is optimally satisfied in learning environments with an autonomy-supportive structure or organization capable of promoting a sense of learner control and agency among students (Reeve et al., 2004; Ryan & Deci, 2017). We tested this with a hierarchical multiple regression (HMR) utilizing teaching presence as the CoI presence primarily responsible for communicating clear course goals and objectives, providing a clear course design and structure, and encouraging students' sense of control and exploration (Anderson et al., 2001; Caskurlu et al., 2020) in order to predict the perceived satisfaction of the basic need for autonomy.

SDT research in learning environments also shows that competence as another fundamental psychological need is optimally satisfied when students perceive that they are capable of learning and are making progress in their learning process (Ryan & Deci, 2017) and we tested this with a HMR utilizing teaching presence as the CoI presence primarily responsible for helping students understand course topics, learn the course content, and experience a sense of progress and achievement (Anderson et al., 2001; Caskurlu et al., 2020) in order to predict online students' perceived competence.

SDT research also indicates that relatedness is optimally satisfied in learning environments in which students feel connected with and cared by significant others including their teachers and peers (Ryan & Deci, 2017). We tested this with a HMR utilizing social presence as the CoI presence primarily responsible for enabling students to feel comfortable communicating and interacting with other course participants and to feel a sense of belonging and collaboration in the online learning environment (Caskurlu, 2018; Garrison, 2009) in order to predict online students' perceived satisfaction of the basic need for relatedness.

In what follows, we briefly present the previous research on Community of Inquiry (CoI) around teaching presence and social presence as it theoretically relates to Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and its basic psychological needs in online learning environments.

Section snippets

Theoretical frameworks

We used the Community of Inquiry (CoI) and its teaching and social presences and Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and its basic psychological needs satisfaction as the theoretical frameworks that informed this study.

Research design

We utilized a cross-sectional survey research design (Creswell, 2014) to examine the proposed linkages between teaching presence and autonomy, teaching presence and competence, and social presence and relatedness. We conducted a total of three hierarchical multiple regression (HMR) analyses utilizing teaching presence as the focal predictor of autonomy and competence used as the dependent variables and social presence as the focal predictor of relatedness used as the dependent variable in their

Relations between teaching presence, social presence, and three basic psychological needs

We conducted all statistical analyses of the data using IBM SPSS version 27. Table 1 provides descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among the five study variables and all of the correlations were moderate to strong and significantly positive. The means of the study variables each indicate the extent to which the participants agreed with the survey item statements given for each single variable. Overall, the perceptions of the online students regarding teaching presence, social

Major findings and their contributions to the literature

This study has empirically demonstrated the significant roles of both teaching presence and social presence in predicting satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness in online learning environments. We found that both perceived teaching presence and perceived social presence positively influenced the perceived satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. We deem our findings valuable because basic needs satisfaction has been consistently

Conclusions

The current study indicates that both teaching presence and social presence as two key social-contextual support mechanisms in online learning environments positively influence the extent to which online students of higher education perceive the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Online course instructors and designers can use our findings in their design, organization, and implementation of online courses so that they can promote basic

Credit author statement

Murat Turk: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Benjamin C. Heddy: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Formal analysis, Writing – review & editing. Robert W. Danielson: Writing – review & editing.

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