Asynchronous and Synchronous Communication  in Enhancing Motivating and Social Presence in Online Learning - By Veronica Byrne and Zoe Lewis-Osanai

 

Introduction

 

In recent years the changes to technologies for use in on line classrooms have been immense with the ubiquitous introduction of virtual worlds, gaming, instant messaging, teleconferencing and more. However, despite all the technological advances and the different affordances they offer it is important to remember that all students are different, and while the advancements are great, the importance of content and human interaction shouldn’t be underestimated. Asynchronous and synchronous communication have their own unique advantages and disadvantages. For some the need for face to face contact and real time human interaction is essential, whereas for others the very thought can spark panic.  In the following pages we will explore the role played by asynchronous and synchronous forms of communication in online learning, looking in particular at their power to motivate and enhance social presence.

 

Asynchronous Communication and the Online Learner

 

When we find ourselves as learners in the online world we quickly realise that asynchronous modes of communication in the form of email, discussion forums, text chat and so on form key features of our environment. The advantages that such a learning environment provides are many. A key example is perhaps accessibility. Salouti (2007), Hammond (1999), Abrami et al. (2011) suggest that materials, lectures and posts can be read reviewed and responded to at anytime, giving students not only the chance to consolidate ideas and learn more carefully, but also the chance to ask questions they may not have thought of in a real time environment. Several other researchers have noted how technologies support learning and allow more time for student reflection. Bonk and Zhang, (2006) and Meloni (2010) suggest that they provide limitless opportunity for considered peer-to-peer interaction/feedback and the opportunity to reflect on collaborations and their own personal learning goals.

Certainly, removing the pressure of real time interaction can be very beneficial to some. Literature from Dille and Mezecks(1992) suggests that psychology can play a role, with independent conceptual learners actually performing better asynchronously. Students with high communication anxiety often lack the confidence and at times the physical ability to respond immediately to others’ suggestions. For others there is the issue of losing face if ideas presented and feedback given  have not been considered carefully. Tu (2001) found that Chinese students often spend a long time improving their typing when writing English online making it difficult to give quick responses in real time. It appears that the usefulness of a permanent message board varies between subjects.   Salouti (2007) suggests that for those such as education, where self-reflection is key, having access to previous thoughts and opinion is clearly advantageous.

The relative anonymity of the platform makes discrimination difficult, providing an equal learning platform for some who may feel judged elsewhere.  It also gives a layer of support to students from cultures where direct confrontation is uncommon and relieves anxieties they may have with peer feedback. In fact Hammond (1999), citing McConnell (1994) and Wegerif  (1995) states 'asynchronous online forums possibly provides an ideal speech community.' Other reasons such as, wifi accessibility, restrictions in the form of time, work/ health issues, past experiences and place, make flexible learning and the asynchronous ‘anytime any where’ environment both practical and motivational in nature.

 

Learner Types and Social Presence

 

Sford (1998) states that, 'no two students and no two teachers arrive at their best performance in the same way’. Richardson and Swan, Cui (2003) and others all suggest that building a strong sense of social presence within learners will encourage student to student / teacher to student communication and this can ultimately promote deeper learning.  However, quite a lot of research has also taken place into student behaviour online. Sutton (2001), Hammond (1999), Abrami et al. (2011) and Wise (2013) have all looked more deeply into social interaction and found that there are specific types of learners whose traits will impact on the way they perceive their learning experience. Although students can move between types these theories are useful tools when considering the best ways to motivate a class.

Although they differ in the names and numbers the research tends to agree on 3 main types of learner. The literature by Hammond (1999), found that the  learners fell into 3 main types, which he categorised as  Communicative, Quiet, and Non Participant . Similar research has produced the names  Virtuoso, and Lurker and these are often used instead. Hammond (1999) found that the more active inter-actors (Communicative/virtuoso) tended to be more willing to take risks and try communicating in different styles. Although not reflective on actual ability, they had high motivation, high self-efficacy and perceived learning and teacher presence. They would instigate discussions, encourage others to post and comment on the posts of others giving them a slightly higher sense of social presence. In contrast the non participants often had a lower sense of teacher/social presence, and perceived learning often leading to drop out.  External support networks and problems with technical ability also played a role. The Lurker or Quiet learner fell between the two, reading posts actively and only occasionally posting. As Salouti's (2007) research found these learners can be difficult to assess due to their lack of public participation and it is not always possible for teachers to know if students are learning or dropping out.

 

Technologies and their role in building social presence in asynchronous online education.

 

Lack of non-verbal cues in most on line interactions can make it difficult for students to connect or can lead to students’ intentions being perceived incorrectly. Gorham (1988) postulated that adding humour, sharing personal stories and encouragement can help develop an increased sense of social presence. Having said that, Kear (2011) citing Coppola et.al (2002) found that after interviewing 20 teachers ‘ in spite of the lack of nonverbal expression’ staff had a closer relationship with their students online than face to face.  Garrison et al. (2000), Rourke et al (1999) and Rovai (2000) also suggest that building social presence and teacher immediacy in a low fidelity text format is possible. However, as technology moves on more recent research suggests that this is more easily achieved through high fidelity media, such as animation voice thread, Wimba, Youtube, etc. Ice et al (2007) found that research into audio feedback messages helped to increase student’s perception of learning and connectedness. Lowenthal (2014) supports this and in his preliminary findings into the use of video to build social presence in asynchronous classes he found video messaging a good way to increase teacher immediacy. As a caveat the process of making video feedback for individual students was incredibly time consuming.  It must also be suggested that these types of individual feedback would only be viable for smaller classes.

 

Issues

It would be naive of us to believe that problems do not exist. As Hammond (1999) points out, paradoxically many of the advantages of the asynchronous learning landscape can also be equally problematic. Abrami et al.(2011)  suggests that while Students involved in an asynchronous environment often chose it for its flexibility and autonomous nature, this can quickly become problematic for the teacher, who is unable to monitor student behaviour closely, and is often unaware, as to whether students have become ‘lurkers’ and are reading but not responding,  or whether they have simply disengaged and dropped out. While the permanency of message boards is necessary to aid students with reflection and goal setting, Tu and McIssac (2002) discovered that students’ perception of just how public and permanent online message boards would be could be problematic.  This was a problem for Chinese students who would choose not to post personal opinions or information due to the more permanent nature of the posts and therefore the number of people who could access it.  Tu and McIssac (2002), however, are not alone in their findings and literature from Hammond (1999) has similar feedback. It is expected that communication will be lost if no one posts their opinions and this can be a regular issue. However, Lapadat (2002) reported that long posts could also stop others posting, as they felt they had nothing left to say. Research from Salouti (2007) supported this with a student suggestion that the poster of the lengthy comments was more interested in boosting their ego than genuinely attempting to interact with their peers.

Abrami et al. (2011) suggested that the technology sometimes made it difficult for teachers to actually teach the student and a structured holistic approach needed to be taken. In the face to face/ synchronous environment teachers can quickly change the lesson to suit the students needs and interests. However, it is almost impossible to do this asynchronously. Richardson and Swan(2003) suggest that in asynchronous online teaching there are none of the immediate visual clues that things need changing. Meaning teachers can often only gauge connectedness or course satisfaction through feedback. Controlling message boards can be equally perilous. Teachers can and must become involved, showing an interest and motivating discussion.  However, it can be a fine line between too little and too much feedback, and issues early on can damage the opportunity for successful, continued interaction. In addition, just as teachers cannot always assess mood or tone in messages, so the same problem can affect student interaction, and possible breakdowns online can occur.

 It seems that there are no easy solutions and the basic format of asynchronous online communication is a double-edged sword, offering the possibility of increased social presence and motivation but also presenting us with difficulties. However, implementing a closely controlled structure connected to assessment can help the teacher in these circumstance, but as Gulati (2008) questioned  'is tightly structured enforced participation constructivist?'  Does this detract from the spirit of freedom and flexibility inherent in asynchronous communication?

 

Synchronous communication, Social Presence and Student Motivation in Online Learning Courses

 

As we have stated the on line environment can be a lonely place for learners due to a lack of social interaction and the psychological distance that has to be overcome. Kim, Kwon and Cho (2011 pg 1512) suggest that the 'isolation, disconnectedness and loneliness they feel hinder them from engaging in the class activities and as a result they lose their academic interest and motivation to continue to study.' Taylor (1995 pg2) states that 'distance educators have also recognised the need to provide opportunities for social interaction to support effective learning and have therefore tried to simulate face to face communication through the development of instructional systems based on technologies such as audio teleconferencing, audio-graphic communication systems, video conferencing and computer mediated communication.' The inclusion of such synchronous communication opportunities in online courses can play a pivotal role in sustaining motivation and counteracting feelings of isolation and separation. So how is synchronous communication online different to asynchronous communication? Synchronous communication in online learning environments is the real time engagement and collaboration that takes place between learners using a suite of e tools. Such tools are available in web conferencing programs such as Elluminate and include ‘audio with two way voice, shared whiteboard (WB), public and private text-based direct messaging (DM), hand raising with sequencing, private and public polling, and application sharing (Elluminate 2003). Although it differs in many ways from the face to face learning environment online synchronous communication provides learners with the opportunity to engage directly with other learners across time and space. Through its affordances it provides a unique avenue through which the online learner is motivated to forge deeper social alliances. This marries with Beldarrain (2006, pg 140) notion of versatility when he states “the versatility of social software and other collaboration tools available today support constructivist environments that seek to motivate, cultivate and meet the needs of the 21^st century learner”.  Carr-Chellman and Duchestal (2000, pg 236) state that “the advantages of synchronous interchanges include a more direct sense of collegial interaction, immediate  resolution to questions posed, and possibly a strong contribution to the team building required to sustain future student interactions”. However, it must be noted that how successful one is in fully utilising the benefits of synchronous communication is related to how well the user can maximize affordances and minimize constraints of the tool being used as discussed by Murphy and Coffin (2010, pg238 ).

 

Synchronous Communication, Social Presence and Motivation

 

 A primary advantage of synchronous communication is that through its affordances it has the power to enhance social presence and in turn motivate learners. Since the time Short et al. (1976) introduced the notion of social presence as experienced primarily in face to face communication, others such as Biocca and Harms (2002, pg 10) have gone on to define social presence as the “sense of being with another in a mediated environment"...the moment-to-moment awareness of the co-presence of a mediated body and the sense of accessibility of the other being’s psychological, emotional, and intentional states. Or as Sung and Mayer (2012, pg 1738) state “social presence can be conceived of as the degree of feeling emotionally connected to another intellectual entity through computer mediated communication”. Online learners believe that the greater the feeling of being socially present the more successful their online learning is.  Through online synchronous communication this sense of engagement and awareness is heightened as learners are present with each other in the moment and the two components of online social presence, intimacy and immediacy, as discussed by Sung and Mayer (2012, pg 1739) are experienced by learners.

 

Can Synchronous Communication Through Video Conferencing Enhance Social Presence?

 

 So what empirical evidence do we have that suggests synchronous communication enhances a learners feelings of social presence. In a study on web conferencing for synchronous online tutorials Kear, Chetwynd, Williams and Donelan (2011, pg 953) make the claim that although asynchronous communication has many benefits “learners can feel that it is impersonal, and that they are not interacting fully with their teachers or other learners” which can result in low participation levels. They suggest that “one possibility for addressing these issues is to use synchronous (real-time) online communication.”  In their study they employed web-conferencing, using the Elluminate interface because of its multimodal nature, to investigate if it supports learning and how it compares to face-to-face teaching. One of the areas their data analysis focused on was social presence. The presumption was that having access to audio, shared whiteboards, live text chat and use of emoticons would enrich the feeling of social presence thereby fostering motivation and in turn enhancing the learning experience. Their findings state that the use of audio in the sessions was imperative for creating a social atmosphere. According to Kear et al (2011, pg 959) “the majority of students said that they enjoyed the interactivity of the multiple ways of communicating. They felt that Elluminate was more convenient than face-to-face tutorial, almost as good, and would be a good supplement to face-to face events.” The tutors involved in the research acknowledged that the online sessions did have social advantages but the development of social presence was challenged by the technical issues that proved problematic and needed to be dealt with in real time. Such issues included background noise, the practice of switching on and off the microphone and audio breakup.  Hsieh and Cho (2011, pg 2027-2028) in their study comparing e-learning tools give further testament to this as they state “empirical studies show that different media poses different degrees of information richness and social presence” and “media such as video or voice conferencing, although not as much ‘socially present’ as face-to-face meetings are high in social presence”. Their research hypotheses states that “a variety of communication media allows for a wider range of communication richness and social presence. For instance, live chatting provides instant feedback in natural language; whiteboard can provide instant elaboration through voice communication and graphic collaboration; and video conferencing presents facial expressions further.” Their findings confirmed that the use of such interactive e tools resulted in higher levels of online learner satisfaction, performance outcome and behavioural intention.

 Therefore, it would seem that the very nature of on line synchronous communication enhances social presence by its ability to encourage collaboration and transfer. When learners feel connected and perceived as real sentient beings on line their desire to succeed becomes greater. Synchronous communication through web based programs such as Elluminate certainly has the power to address what Taylor (1995 pg1) refers to as 'tyranny of distance' which seeks to undermine the motivation of many online learners.

 

Conclusion

 

To conclude, despite the technical and psychological drawbacks of  asynchronous and synchronous communication online, both offer learners the real opportunity to create a community of learning that has the power to sustain motivation and enhance social presence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

 

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