| This study continues the exploration of the Community of Inquiry framework and how collaborative technologies, specifically wikis, can be used to impact student perception of social presence. The subjects were 78 graduate education students in three differently contrived sections of the same online course. Participants completed the Community of Inquiry Survey at the end of the term, which measured their perceived level of teaching, social, and cognitive presence during the course. The experimental setting utilized a single instructor teaching one course, and randomly assigned students. Each section had students collaborate using a different tool (synchronous wiki, asynchronous wiki, and discussion board-only). All subjects perceived high levels of the three presences when compared with previous studies. Students collaborating using an asynchronous wiki perceived significantly more social presence than those using only a discussion board. Specifically, students perceived greater levels of trust and group cohesion when the course design incorporated a wiki for small group collaboration. |
