Making online learning more satisfying: The effects of online-learning self-efficacy, social presence, and content structure

This study examines the effects of instructor presence and online learning self-efficacy on learning satisfaction, and how the effect of social presence may depend on content structure. In this study, undergraduate students in Singapore rated their online learning self-efficacy. Then they rated their learning satisfaction after watching each of four video lectures in a 2 (low versus high instructor presence) x 2 (low versus high content structure) repeated measures experiment. Findings show that learning satisfaction is related to instructor presence and online learning self-efficacy and that the effect of instructor presence is stronger for unstructured than for structured content. This study contributes to research on pedagogy and online learning by clarifying when and how instructor presence enhances learning outcomes. Although most kinds of instruction can benefit from higher levels of instructor presence, there is the greatest benefit for unstructured content, where teaching and learning involve a more interpretive process.