Social Interactions in the Online Classroom

Salome C. Nnoromele, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of English & Theatre
Eastern Kentucky University
E-mail:  Salome.nnoromele@eku.edu

The online classroom is no longer a new and unexplored space for teaching and learning. Recent studies indicate that online enrollment continues to grow and at a faster rate than most educators had predicted. In Fall 2003, 1.98 million students were enrolled in at least one online course (Allen & Seaman, 2004). The number increased to 2.35 million by Fall 2004 (Allen & Seaman, 2005). Nearly 3.2 million students were enrolled in online courses in Fall 2005, a growth rate of thirty-five percent from the previous year (Allen & Seaman, 2006). Studies project a steady increase in new students enrollment in online courses over the next few years(Allen & Seaman, 2006).  More than ninety-six percent of public and private institutions of higher learning are now offering courses online (Allen & Seaman, 2006). In Fall 2005, forty-four percent of schools offering Master’s degree programs also offered these programs online (Allen & Seaman, 2005). By Fall 2006, the percentage of Master’s degree programs offering courses online has risen to eighty percent (Allen & Seaman, 2006). In Fall 2005, fifty-six percent of schools identify online education as a critical long-term strategy (Allen & Seaman, 2005). In Fall 2006, the number had increased to sixty-one percent (Allen & Seaman, 2006). There is no question that the platform for online learning requires more motivation and discipline than the conventional classroom; however, many credit the flexibility of online classes as one major factor in its growing popularity. Students often report satisfaction with the online format, “stating that it was easy to work at their own pace and gave them the freedom to work from home” (“The ABCs of CMC”, 2006, 2). John F. Lyons (2004), in “Teaching U.S. History Online: Problems and Prospects,” also remarks:

            For both the students and the teachers, online instruction offers many advantages over a             traditional class. Because there is no need to attend classes at a set time, and students are             able to do course work at any time of the day, online classes can reach a whole new             group of students. Busy working people, often on shift work, who want to advance their             careers, frequent travelers, those who physically find it difficult to attend college, and             parents who want to, or have to, spend more time at home with their children, can take             advantage of a flexible schedule offered by online classes. Some motivated students simply             prefer to work on their own and in their own time rather than attend a traditional class. For             the instructor, online teaching offers the ability to teach from home as well as school and             from remote sites via a laptop computer especially during the summer months or if away at             a conference. (448)

Some of the early concerns instructors had about online learning are increasingly being addressed through experience and research.  Most educators now agree that students learn as much online as they would in the traditional classroom (Anderson, 2005; Keeton, 2004; Allen & Seaman, 2004). Many students indicate that the self-directed nature of online courses means that they are more deeply engaged with course content and, therefore, learn more than they would in the traditional classroom (Kirkpatrick, 2002; Stein, 2003; Allen & Seaman, 2004). While workload for both faculty and students may still seem daunting, recent research suggests that even this challenge can be overcome through effective planning and time management strategies (Lozenzetti, 2004). Communication between faculty and student on course related materials can be effected through course design, detailed assignment descriptions, clear assessment criteria, and availability of the instructor online and through e-mail to handle student questions and other learning issues. However, one area of online learning that is yet to be fully examined by researchers continues to pose the greatest challenge for online instructors: the level of social interaction, or lack thereof, between students and between students and faculty in the online environment. One cannot ignore the volumes of research indicating that positive student-student and faculty-student informal interactions are a necessary component of good pedagogy (Hanna et al., 2000).

Various studies suggest that positive social interaction, including both social and cognitive presence in the classroom, is a proven strong determinant of student and faculty satisfaction, student performance, intellectual growth, and student retention (Tu & McIssac, 2002;  Kling & Courtright, 2003;  Weaver & Albion, 2005).  It increases feelings of affirmation, confidence, self-worth, and facilitates greater levels of academic integration into the university or any learning environment (Weaver & Albion, 2005). In face-to-face classrooms, it seems inevitable that students meeting regularly at a specific space and time for three months or more will develop some level of spontaneous social interaction that enhances community building. These spontaneous interactions often occur before and after class, and sometimes they extend beyond the walls of the classroom, occasionally leading to deep friendships and affiliations between groups of students. As Rita Culross (2004) argues, “social interaction that constitutes teaching and learning is a shared experience that allows [instructors] to communicate to students the excitement of [their] own learning and to see the students’ transformation from knowledge gatherers to engaged scholars” (63). However, effective and sustained social interaction continues to pose a great challenge in the online classroom. Some critics have simply noted that “Distance learning does not have the interpersonal potential of the conventional classroom”( Freitas, Myers & Avtgis, 1998, 368). Others challenge this notion, arguing that while many nuances of interpersonal communication in face-to-face classes are lost in an online course, other elements, including a shift in communication styles, and classroom collaborations, could be used to provide engaging interactions between students and the instructor (“The ABCs of CMC”, 2006). Hanna et al. (2000), in 147 Practical Tops for Teaching Online Groups, argue that online classrooms “can be very social and interactive in nature. . . . Many online learners say that they end up knowing their online co-learners more deeply than they would in a class where they would all be physically present with each other” (54). To help facilitate social interactions in the online classroom, they suggest that online teachers,

            Create a special environment for socialization where you and your learners can share             informal personal accounts, information about social events, and other tidbits that aren’t             essential to the class itself. You might dub this space the “Student Lounge” or “Café Latte”             and set it aside for announcements, casual conversations, meetings, outside seminars, and             personal experiences (55). 

Elbaum, McIntyre and Smith (2002), in Essential Elements, also argue that “a community is a necessary and integral part of a functional learning group. Students need to bond in a community in order to have a sense of trust with each other and respect for each other’s ideas” (49). To help achieve the desired online learning community, they echo the suggestion offered by Hanna et al. in encouraging online instructors to include a space for social interactions, “a Coffee Klatch,” in the class structure. They explain:

            Include a water cooler, café, or other student hangout area for non-course-related            discussions. In a brick and mortar school, community building happens before and after             class, before the instructor shows up or after she leaves—out in the hall. Online, you have             to create a similar space for social interactions. If you don’t create a space for them, these             social and personal communications will intrude on the “real” discussions, diluting them             and making it harder for students to get back on track with the learning objectives and             goals for a particular assignment. (49).

The debate simply recognizes the challenges of trying to interact socially with a group of people one does not see. We humans are social animals. In the real world, facial expressions, gesture, dress, physical proximity, and other non-verbal cues all contribute to an appreciable degree of social presence and we learn to adjust relationships by reading these cues (Curtis, 2004). The online environment, for the most part, lacks these non-verbal cues. The question, then, is how do we compensate for this absence?  Or, perhaps, most importantly, is there a need to compensate for this absence? Can online courses succeed without them?

Personal Experience

My first online class was in Fall 2001. I felt quite prepared to teach the class. Prior to the beginning of the semester, I enrolled and completed two online teaching courses provided by my institution. I also immersed myself in published literature on teaching and learning online. However, neither the preparatory courses nor the literature prepared me for the nagging feeling that I felt throughout the semester because of my lack of sustained social interaction with the students. The course was an upper division undergraduate class on British Literature. Students were enrolled in the class as an elective for a related major or as a core requirement for their major. There were fifteen students in the course, and for most, this was their first online course. Many of the students had not met one another previously. Four of the students had taken other courses from me in face-to-face classrooms prior to enrolling in the online course.

The class began with the students updating their personal information on Blackboard (the software used for course delivery) to include current e-mail and regular mailing (snail mail) addresses so that I could e-mail and send them relevant class information when needed. Students were made to understand that only the instructor had access to their personal information on Blackboard. Even though Blackboard offers a feature to enable students to e-mail each other from the class site, classmates do not have access to each other’s personal information. I created a threaded discussion forum where students could introduce themselves and respond to one another’s postings. Students actively participated in introducing themselves to the class and in responding to postings from other students. They also participated actively in class discussions of course content.

Studies indicate that one of the benefits of teaching online—something impossible in a traditional classroom—is that because of the unrestrained time and space aspect of the online platform,  students are of varying ages and degrees of experiences, involved in all walks of life, and living in various parts of the country or the world. I found that to be particularly true for my class. My institution does not restrict enrollment in online courses only to students outside of campus. All students, traditional and nontraditional, have equal access to online courses. But, I found that of the fifteen students enrolled in the course only five could accurately be classified as traditional students. Most of the students lived at least thirty miles from campus, and two students lived outside the state. The caliber and background levels of students in the class resulted in a heightened level of class discussion of course materials not paralleled in the traditional classroom. For example, the threaded discussion forum on a selection of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience received a total of fifty-nine different postings on various aspects of the poet’s life and work. The students questioned, analyzed and responded to each other’s questions and analyses in a way that is not possible in the traditional classroom since in the traditional classroom, not everyone speaks. Some students are quiet, absorbing and evaluating class discussions in their own minds; the more vocal students often dominate class discussions because perhaps they think they have more to say. Online, however, every student is required to and is provided the opportunity to express his or her ideas. Such a leveling platform means that class discussion is enriched by the intellectual contributions from all members of the class. Here is an example of one strand from the postings on William Blake’s Songs Innocence and Experience:

            Student one: The fact that William Blake wrote a collection of poetry that presents two             opposing mental views of the world forces me to ask what kind of internal conflicts were             plaguing Blake? Blake strikes me as one who sympathizes and empathizes with children             … which I find strange because he and his wife were childless. Do you think that this             childlessness made him ultra-sensitive to the plight of children? Had Blake had children, do             you think he could have so acutely picked up on the societal mistreatment of children?

            Student Two: I don’t think that Blake having or not having children made a bit of            difference in the fact that he sympathized with children and their plight. He did so because             everyone knew how mistreated children were, especially those children that were chimney             sweepers or those who worked for wages in the factories. This is why Blake wrote about             them. To let open the eyes of some people who couldn’t get passed the money and see             that the children were getting hurt and eventually dying.

            Student One: I don’t think that everybody realized the plight of children … otherwise             there would have been no “plight” for Blake to write about. I think religious hypocrisy and             greed were so out of control that only those with a hyper-sensitivity to the innocence and             vulnerability of youth (such as Blake) could have had the insight to look beyond the             societal conception of children at the time to address the issue of “child abuse” in a manner             as to question and expose social complacency and attitudes.
 
            Instructor:  I am wondering if the neglect and abuse of children as well as religious             hypocrisy is only peculiar to Blake’s time. How does our own society, local and global,             fair in regards to these issues. 

            Student Three: I totally agree that we in this society are guilty to a certain extent of going             along with a child labor system. Most of the clothing I buy, even if they’re the more             expensive brands, are produced in other countries that do not have strict laws concerning             child labor, and therefore, I as well as a great many other people, do support this horrible             system. If it happened in America, I would condemn the manufacturer, but since it            happens overseas, and not in my backyard, I don’t really think about it when purchasing             items. In addition, I also tend not to think about it as much because the actions taken by a             particular company may be unethical, in the countries where they manufacture items, hiring             14 year olds would not be illegal. Unfortunately, just as in Blake’s day, the children in             many cases bring home the family’s sole income, or work countless hours to supplement             the family’s tiny income.

Obviously, I enjoyed the sustained discussions and analyses of class materials by the students. Yet, I still felt deprived. I missed the pleasure of seeing my students face-to-face, knowing who they were, what they looked like, and observing their gestures. I also missed the social interactions, the verbal and non-verbal communications in and out of the classroom (Curtis, 2004). Students focused on course content, rarely deviating from course materials to comment on personal issues. For example, I would have loved to probe further the issue raised by Student Three in the comment above. Why does he not think about the unethical actions taken by a particular company or by countries where ten-year-olds are employed at meager wages to manufacture items that are then sold at exorbitant prices to the western world? In the traditional classroom, we may have a discussion on the issue outside of class, perhaps during my office hours. In the online class, there is no such opportunity for social interactions. I might post a comment on the forum, asking the student to explain further. But, depending on how the question is understood, the student might become defensive and refuse to discuss the issue further. Moreover, such discussions might also take up valuable time that could have been spent on other aspects of Blake’s poems.

With these concerns in mind, I redesigned the course during my subsequent semester of online teaching to include a social space, a threaded discussion forum that encouraged students to converse on social and political issues related or unrelated to course content, a place to get to know each other better. Students were told that they could use the forum to share personal experiences and/or discuss current affairs issues. The forum was designed not to have the appearance of “work” or to interfere with the time for discussing course material. Students had the flexibility to participate in the discussion anytime they wanted and as often as they liked. There was no penalty or reward associated with participation or lack thereof in the forum. I was not certain how comfortable students would be in airing their views, political or otherwise, in a time unrestrained forum. But I was looking forward to getting to know my students better and observing how they communicate with each other online and outside of course content.

Mixed Results

Five years later, having implemented the forum in both graduate and undergraduate online courses, I have had mixed results. My greatest success has been with graduate courses. Graduate students successfully use the forum to discuss events in their lives, such as the birth of a baby, weddings, favorite or worst places to go on a vacation, or to delve into unresolved questions that came up during discussion of course material. A few students have used the forum to share their excitement at having a poem or short story published, or a paper proposal accepted for a conference presentation. In Fall 2003 one student was able to generate a lengthy discussion on the movie Sylvia, starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath. In Spring 2006, another student generated and sustained a discussion and reflections on “favorite books” and whether or not the just released movie on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice did justice to the novel. However, I have had the least success in undergraduate sophomore and junior level courses. Even though my undergraduate students are active participants in class discussions of course materials, they generally have been unwilling to post or respond to postings outside of course content. Genuinely frustrated with the lack of student participation in “the social space” forum, I surveyed students enrolled in three of my undergraduate (sophomore and junior level) online courses in Fall 2004, asking specifically why it seemed many of them were reluctant to participate in the forum. The survey was re-administered in Fall 2005 and Spring 2006 to students in two sophomore level online courses. Students ranged from freshmen to seniors. Of the seventy-two students enrolled in the courses, sixty-four students responded to the question. Their responses highlight six issues that may help in assessing student attitudes towards online learning:

            · I’d have to say just laziness or simply forgetting that the outlet is available for us.

            · I don’t think we like to do things that won’t get us points.

            · I have not had the time to participate in the discussion. The required assignments for this             course, coupled with the requirement of my five other classes and my responsibilities as a             mother, were enough to keep me busy.

            · I am reluctant to participate because I am afraid my contributions will seem stupid to my             peers. I prefer to just e-mail you.

            · I chose not to participate because I am a really cynical person and would most likely             offend people with my honest answers.

Analysis

While it seems that students participate actively in class discussion of course content, they are reluctant to go beyond that to engage in social interactions with each other, especially if it is not required or graded. It also seems that the celebrated assumption that online learning provides a comfortable atmosphere for students who are reluctant to speak in class is rapidly becoming a myth. Personality traits play a crucial role in group dynamics (Chen & Caropreso, 2004). Because students are provided a space in which they can freely express opinions does not mean that every student will utilize the opportunity. Moreover, as one of my students indicated, “I chose not to participate because I am a really cynical person and would most likely offend people with my honest answers.” Students are increasingly becoming aware that lack of physical presence in the online classroom does not shield one from the consequences of one’s views and opinions. The online environment may actually intensify rather than abate such feelings.  In the traditional classroom, one makes a conscious selection in terms of what aspects of one’s experiences are to be communicated to specific members of the class. In the online classroom, access to personal experiences and announcements shared in the discussion forum are not directed to a select group of people. Everyone taking the class has access to the information; this aspect of online learning is increasingly becoming intimidating even for “bold” students. Hence, even though students recognize the benefits of social interactions, they make a conscious or unconscious decision not to participate. Yet as many findings have suggested, dynamic classroom interactions influence achievement; both social presence (our online persona) and cognitive presence (our engagement with course content and course participants) impact effective online teaching and learning (Haukoos & Penick, 1983; Bai, 2003).

Even though I was initially reluctant to require my online students to participate in the social discussion forum and to have the forum graded, I have begun to rethink my stance on the subject. While I am hesitant to introduce a system such as grading that will inevitably compel students to talk with each other and share personal experiences because they want a good grade, it goes without saying that if social interaction is a value I want to cultivate in my on-line classroom, I may have little choice in the matter. Even though forced social interaction may detract from the pleasantness, I am not more comfortable with the alternative.  Moreover, studies indicate that students in the face-to-face classroom are also reluctant to perform tasks that are not graded. “Students would apply high-level cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies if tasks called for them” (Hara, Bonk, & Angeli, 2000, 137). I am not sure why I expected different behavior and responses from my online students. It seems necessary that all online activities be graded, if the activities are considered important (“I don’t think we like to do things that won’t get us points”).

As online learning and teaching continues to grow, there is a need for continued research in the area of student-student, student-faculty communications in the classroom, especially in regards to social interaction, both social and cognitive presence in the classroom. There is no question that community building is an important factor in creating successful online learning experiences for our students (“The ABC of CMC”, 2006). However, many questions are still left unanswered. It is critical to continue to examine what factors affect social interaction in the online learning environment, how and why students interact with each other and the instructor, and the implications for the teaching and learning process. We also need to consider if online students have the same level of expectation of social interaction as students in the conventional classroom. McHenry and Bozik (1995) noted students enrolled in distance learning sites learn to become tolerant with technological problems. But it has not been proven that students make the same compensation for lack of social interaction in the online classroom. Online students and instructors often use computer generated textual symbols such as emoticons or smileys (J) to express affective and socio-emotional information (Chen & Caropreso, 2004). But, do these effectively compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction? If online teaching and learning is ultimately to maintain the same level of satisfaction as the traditional classroom, it must find ways to encourage students to interact freely with each other. Being aware of the factors involved would aid online teachers in further understanding the dynamics of online learning, as well as assist in rethinking course structure and design to enable online students to maximize their own learning outcomes.

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