This quantitative research project examined the effectiveness of instructor immediacy and presence within online faculty-student interactions in graduate statistics courses relative to students’ statistics anxiety levels. Resulting empirical evidence support instructor social cues, clarification, breadth of knowledge, and interaction quality as significant predictors for reducing students’ statistics anxiety levels.
PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION AND GOALS: The proposed session will deliver an innovative research highlights education session presentation emphasizing the results of a quantitative research project impacting online student learning environments in higher education aimed at the learning effectiveness strand and appropriate for all audiences interested in online instruction. The learning effectiveness tags incorporated in the proposed presentation include the following: quantitative research, online discussions, student engagement, instructor-student interactions, student efficacy, community of inquiry, social cues, breadth of knowledge, instructor immediacy, instructor presence, learner interaction, social presence, student anxiety, and student success. The presentation will include a two-fold interactive session for conference participants followed by a 5-minute question and answer session focused on the following delivery goals: (1) to deliver a 20-minute research presentation of a completed study involving instructor immediacy and presence as measured by observed characteristics and qualities of instructor-student online interactions (instructor social cues, clarification, breadth of knowledge, and interaction quality) as significant predictors for reducing graduate students’ statistics anxiety levels and (2) to facilitate a 20-minute interactive activity for audience participants to role play as observers coding an instructor-student online interaction scenario using a rubric for assessing instructor immediacy and presence to experience the source and acquisition method for the data collection procedure used in the study and to experience the meaning and measuring of instructor immediacy and presence within online environments.
Research Context and Statement of the Problem: Instructor immediacy has been conceptualized as interactions through communications between instructors and students that “influence the perception of physical and psychological closeness” (Williams, 2010, p. 4) whereas instructor presence is the degree of “visibility as perceived by the learner” (Baker, 2010, p. 5). Traditional hands-on, face-to-face statistics laboratories involving graduate education students using advanced statistics software within computer laboratory settings assisted by a faculty member and lab assistants interacting with students individually and in small groups are no longer common practices within graduate programs moving to fully online venues. Fully online asynchronous graduate education courses/programs incorporate faculty-student online discussion interactions as the mainstay component for supporting instruction. The problem investigated in the current study focused on instructor presence and immediacy within fully online graduate education programs relative to graduate education students’ statistics anxiety levels. Virtually all graduate education students are required to enroll in at least one graduate statistics course as a core component of a graduate education program. Some graduate programs require a series of three graduate statistics courses for a graduate education degree. Statistics courses are often viewed by graduate education students as anxiety producing, frightening, difficult, and impossible for successful completion. Students often postpone or avoid taking required statistics courses until late in their degree programs. Just as math anxiety pervades many educational settings, statistics anxiety may create a prohibitive environment for students to successfully complete degrees, especially within online learning environments. The overwhelming prevalence of graduate education students’ statistics anxiety/fear levels and their low self-confidence levels surrounding their perceptions of successfully completing advanced educational statistics courses is evidenced in the literature (Baloglu, 2003; Onwuegbuzie & Wilson, 2003; Onwuegbuzie, 2010, Perepiczka, Chandler, & Becerra, 2011). Faculty members in graduate education courses use online discussion forums and interaction venues for multiple purposes, such as, presenting new content, responding to questions, modeling writing skills, providing praise, encouraging learner interactions, promoting student engagement, building communities of inquiry, personalizing learning, providing social presence, supporting collaboration in learners, and maintaining a presence for learners to accommodate immediate needs of learners. The influence of faculty immediacy and presence in online interactions with students as instrumental vehicles for improving student learning venues to promote collaborative learning, critical thinking skills, student communities, student efficacy, and other types of learning outcomes has been examined by multiple researchers (Baker, 2004; Dawson, 2006; Fleming, 2008; Nandi, Chang, & Balbo, 2009; Richardson, 2010; So, 2010; Baker, 2010; Williams, 2010; Sheridan & Kelly, 2010; LeFebvre & Allen, 2014; Chakraborty & Nafukho, 2015). This quantitative study addressed the problem of instructor presence and immediacy within online learning environments by empirically examining relationships among specific faculty-student online interactions as depicted by six qualities: clarification, relevance or application of knowledge, breadth of knowledge, critical discussion of student contributions, social cues for student engagement, and overall interaction quality relative to students’ statistics anxiety within an advanced online graduate educational statistics course.
Research Goals and Study Questions: The conceptual framework for this study integrated the work of Nandi, Chang, and Balbo (2009) emphasizing the types of faculty-student interactions within online environments; the efforts of LeFebvre and Allen (2014) aimed at focusing on the criteria for assessing interaction quality within the context of instructor immediacy and presence in faculty-student interactions; the suggested strategies of Chakraborty & Nafukho (2015) for examining instructor presence and immediacy within online interactions; and the perspectives of Perepiczka, Chandler & Becerra (2011) relative to instructor responsiveness to students’ statistics anxiety issues . The two-fold research goal purported to: (a) examine relationships and influences among specific faculty/student online interactions (represented by six characteristics of instructor presence and immediacy) relative to graduate education students’ statistics anxiety levels within an online graduate educational statistics course; and (b) identify specific characteristics of instructor-student online interactions representing instructor immediacy and presence as significant predictors for reducing students’ anxiety levels. Two specific research questions guided the study. (1) What are the relationships among instructor immediacy and presence qualities as measured by specific faculty-student online interaction characteristics and students’ statistics anxiety levels within an online graduate advanced educational statistics course? (2) Which specific instructor immediacy and presence qualities depicted within instructor-student online interactions will predict reductions in students’ statistics anxiety levels within an online graduate advanced educational statistics course?
Methods: Multiple data sources were utilized for the project: (a) Participants completed pre and post Likert-scale assessments using the Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale or STARS (Baloglu 2003) comprised of six subscales (Worth of Statistics, Interpretation Anxiety, Test and Class Anxiety, Computational Self-Concept, Fear of Asking for Help, and Fear of Statistics Teachers) and a Total STARS score; and (b) Two research assistants were trained to use the Rubric for Assessing Quality in Online Discussion Forums (Nandi, Chang, & Balbo, 2009) with a resulting interrater reliability coefficient of .92 prior to the initiation of the study. Assessment data were collected weekly by the two research assistants examining instructor-student online interactions. The Likert-scale rubric to assess online instructor-student interactions contains six interaction qualities areas representing instructor presence and immediacy: clarification, breadth of knowledge, relevance or application of knowledge; critical discussion of contribution to the discussion, use of social cues for engagement, and overall interaction quality scores. Project participants included 187 graduate educational statistics students enrolled in an advanced online graduate educational statistics course. The study targeted a convenience sample of graduate educational students enrolled in an advanced online educational statistics course during the 2014-2016 academic terms and utilized a pre-post one-group design. Students were provided extra credit incentives for their participation in the study. Those students who did not wish to participate in the study were provided alternative extra credit options. Participant data were matched for pre-post assessments by the use of unique number codes and were not identifiable to the researcher. Pre-post assessment data were analyzed using dependent t-test analyses to determine mean changes in students’ statistics anxiety levels. Correlation and regression analyses were performed to determine relationships and predictive characteristics using the online instructor-student interaction rubric data as predictor variables matched to students’ statistics anxiety levels for examining interaction qualities as potential predictors for reducing students’ statistics anxiety levels.
Results and Conclusions: Results of the study involved empirically aligning observed online faculty-student interaction qualities with the subscales of the STARS for the purpose of exploring and determining interrelationships among specific types and characteristics of interactions that significantly reduce statistics anxiety in students. Significant relationships were determined among the emerging characteristics evidenced within instructor immediacy and presence qualities and predictive relationships for four of the six instructor-student interaction qualities (clarification, breadth of knowledge, critical discussion of contributions, and social cues for student engagement) were determined to significantly foster the reduction of statistics anxiety levels of graduate educational students.
Discussion and Interpretation: The research effort provides an empirical alignment of faculty-student interactions as measures of instructor immediacy and presence with graduate students’ statistics anxiety levels. The study findings determined specific types of characteristics of instructor presence and immediacy within online instructor-student interactions that identify predictive instructor qualities for effectively reducing statistics anxiety in graduate students. Study results provide depth and understanding to the effective use of instructor immediacy and presence within online learning environments in higher education.