“Critical Review: The Effect of Synchronous Instructor Presence on Student Learning” is the title of the QM Research Online Conference session I watched tonight. Drs. Enoch Park and Mary Ellen Dello Stritto presented along with Lidija Krebs-Lazendic, Director of Graduate Diploma in Psychology at the University of New South Wales. Park is at UNC Charlotte and Dello Stritto is at Oregon State. They are an international research team that has been working together for a while. The Oregon State University E-campus Research Unit does original research, provides support for online education research with a fellows program, and does collaborative programs. This sounds like a great program and similar to our Course Quality Research program. Dello Stritto spoke about the research seminars program they had on their campus and the focus on meta-analysis. They shared a link to their study results: beav.es/G9p Dello Stritto shared that they started with the goal of a meta-analysis and this later turned into a review. Park shared data from the Voice of the Online Learner 2023: Responding to students’ evolving preferences and concerns from Wiley that noted that 79% of students were open to at least one synchronous session per course. However, 81% preferred asynchronous and 29% synchronous. During synchronous sessions, students preferred asking questions and obtaining real-time feedback. The team had the research question:
How does synchronous instructor presence in the form of synchronous activities relate to student satisfaction and course outcomes (i.e., grades)?
Park shared data from CHLOE8 that suggests the current implementation of synchronous online instruction is increasing. The research team used the Community of Inquiry framework. The combination of social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence contribute to the educational experience. In this study, they defined synchronous instructor presence as live lectures, 1:1 meetings with instructor that are required, live chat/text with instructor, live online discussions with instructor and other students, live discussion through online platforms… Krebs-Lazendic explained that their study followed a systematic review and meta analysis methodology. The search process included databases, referrals, and searches. Searches were filtered for full-text articles. In the screening phase, the team excluded studies in blended learning and face-to-face environments as well as K-12 environments. The team asked the audience to guess how many articles were included in the search, screen, and coding phases. In the initial search, the team identified 7,591 articles, 7,562 were removed in the pre-pass screen, and 19 were removed in the coding stage. The ten studies had fifteen outcomes; however, four studies were from one institution. Few studies focused on satisfaction. The research team then changed course and decided to conduct a systematic review. The ten studies were coded in the final stage, with four from one institution (Embry Riddle Aeronautic University). Interestingly, three studies from one institution showed higher grades in asynchronous courses. In three studies course grades were higher in courses with synchronous instructor presence, and in four studies these results were not significant. Dello Stritto noted “threats to validity” such as lack of a uniform operational definition of instructor presence, variability in research design, inconsistent measurement of outcomes, and… a single institution. Dello Stritto shared three opportunities that I thought were important to learn from. There is a need for methodological rigor and transparency in this field. A clear definition of synchronous instructor presence is critical. Dello Stritto also explained that reporting key details and statistics in results would be very helpful. Dello Stritto did conclude that they were unable to determine if there was a significant effect of synchronous instructor presence. Park also talked about the need for more research in K-12 environments. Park did note that they excluded qualitative studies, and this is another area of future analyses!
