A Multiple-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Scores for Online Social Presence: Do They Measure the Same Thing across Cultural Groups?

Abstract

Online learners and instructors are more diverse in their social and cultural backgrounds than their counterparts in face-to-face classrooms. The diversified social and cultural backgrounds of online learners and instructors complicate the conceptualization of online social presence and pose challenges to instructors in course design. This study conducted a multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis of the scores from the Computer-Mediated Communication Questionnaire (CMCQ), using Structural Equation Modeling, to assess the equality of the underlying factor structure across the low-context culture (LCC) and the high-context culture (HCC) groups. The results suggested that cultural groups perceived online social presence in a slightly different manner. Perception differences were observed in three of the four dimensions of online social presence.

Increasing Social Presence in Online Learning through Small Group Discussions

“…As online discussion forums are a technological feature to facilitate interactions among students and, in turn, relationship-building (Yen & Tu, 2011), how to design the discussion forum interactions is an important instructional decision. However, limited research exists on design decisions on how to enhance sociability of the online environment, particularly with regard to group size.…”

Collaborative Learning, Social Presence and Student Satisfaction in a Blended Learning Environment

“…If this finding of an increased importance of social presence for a specific cultural group can be repeated with a larger sample, then we might be able to explore whether there are significant design issues that could enhance student completion when designing blended courses for groups that are dominated by one or two cultural groups. It also opens the door to the possibility that there may be all sorts of culture-related factors that blended course designers should be aware of when designing a blended course for a targeted cultural group, as argued by other authors, such as [16][23] and [24]. This appears to reinforce the long-held belief among instructional designers that it is critical to know your audience in advance of designing a lesson for different cultures [25] [26] [27].…”

Consequences of Ignoring Guessing Effects on Measurement Invariance Analysis

“…Similar to those in previous simulation studies (e.g., Finch, 2005; Woods & Harpole, 2015), the variance of ability was 1 for both groups but the group mean difference in ability was manipulated. The number of items in the test was 28, which is in the range of a typical test length in empirical and simulation studies for testing measurement invariance via MG-FA (e.g., Koh & Zumbo, 2008; C. J.…”