Social Presence and Educational Technologies in an Online Distance Course in Finnish Higher Education : A Social Constructivist Approach.

Educational technologies are increasingly integrated into higher education, in the form of distance online education for instance. This is an example of how globalization reconfigures education (Carnoy & Rothen, 2000, as cited in Peters, Besley, & Besley, 2006, pp.50). However, the development of online distance education is not without challenges, including the lack of sense of belonging and the feeling of isolation among students, leading to dropouts. Even if there is no deterministic effect of online environments on social interactions, being online undoubtedly reshapes social behaviors. These issues are addressed in this study by examining social presence, defined as the sense of being there with others in a mediated environment (Heeter, 1992), taking an online distance course on Global Education Development in Finland as a study-case. The research aims to analyze how social presence is performed and negotiated through educational technologies. It is grounded in social constructivism to circumvent determinism that prevails in many research works on social presence and educational technologies. Social constructivism brings out human agency while recognizing the effect of the “socio-historical norms, values, beliefs, and perspectives that individuals bring into online learning environments” on the way educational technologies are used and social presence performed (Öztok, 2016, as cited in Öztok, 2013, pp.1). This research pursues a qualitative comparative methodology complemented with basic descriptive statistics. It draws from multiple data sources as it analyzes observations of interactions, survey questionnaires, course material, learning diaries, and six semi-structured interviews with students. The findings explore three dimensions of social presence: subjective, physical, and collective presence. They reveal that broader academic norms, more than educational technologies themselves, shape the representations of subjective presence. The results also verify that text-based online discussions provide more space for students to participate in discussions than webinars using online video-based technologies, but are also paradoxically negatively perceived by students. The analysis of collective presence demonstrates that it emerges from a shared group identity among students and instructors, rather than from sharing sensory inputs, developing interpersonal relations, or sharing personal background information at a group level