Social presence and student perceptions in the blend of synchronous and asynchronous communication forms

The paper describes the experience of 7 students in a postgraduate course in a higher education setting over the course of 13 weeks. The course utilizes a blended learning approach, employing synchronous and asynchronous forms of communication as well as some face-to-face meetings. A mixed method approach is adopted to investigate the social dimension of various communication media. The coding of online transcripts and the evaluation of student reflections serve as primary data sources for the elaboration of social presence and its utilization within synchronous and asynchronous communication media. Findings confirm the assumption that the medium plays a role in the overall amount of presence shown. However, students use that potential differently. This may be due in part to students´ attitudes toward the media. We would like to encourage future research to target factors influencing the different utilization of a medium´s potential.