Tsai, I.-C., Kim, B., Liu, P.-J., Goggins, S. P., Kumalasari, C., & Laffey, J. M. (2008). Building a Model Explaining the Social Nature of Online Learning. Educational Technology & Society, 11(3), 198–215. 198 ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print). © International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS). The authors and the forum jointly retain the copyright of the articles. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than IFETS must be honoured. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from the editors at kinshuk@ieee.org. Building a Model Explaining the Social Nature of Online Learning I-Chun Tsai, Bosung Kim, Pei-Ju Liu, Sean P. Goggins, Christiana Kumalasari and James M. Laffey School of Information Science and Learning Technologies (SISLT), University of Missouri-Columbia, USA // itch9@mizzou.edu // bkq22@mizzou.edu // pl6tf@mizzou.edu // outdoors@acm.org // ckef7@mizzou.edu // laffeyj@missouri.edu ABSTRACT Based on a framework emphasizing the social nature of learning, this research examines a model of how social constructs affect satisfaction within online learning using path analysis for students in higher education. The social constructs evaluated in this study include sense of community (SOC), social ability (SA), perceived ease of use (PEU) and usefulness (PU) of social awareness tools, and self-reported participation (SRP) in online courses. Students’ social ability is predicted by perceived ease of use of social awareness tools and self-reported participation. Satisfaction with online learning is explained by sense of community, social ability, and self- reported participation. Sense of community is shown to be a mediator of the relationships between social ability and satisfaction (SA S) and between perceived usefulness and satisfaction (PU S). Additionally, students’ social ability, perception of usefulness of social awareness tools, and self-reported participation serve as predictors for students’ sense of community. The findings from the path analysis show the value of simultaneously examining the relationships among the multiple social constructs, rather than simply examining relationships of how one construct may predict another as has been shown in previous studies. Keywords Sense of community, Social ability, Technology Acceptance, Participation, Online learning satisfaction, Path analysis Introduction Online learning has become a pervasive part of higher education. Online enrollment increased from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million in 2004, and approximately 74 percent of public institutions of higher education identified online education as a critical long-term strategy in 2005 (Allen & Seaman, 2005). Many positive reports of online learning success show its impact and potential, such as relative equivalence in test-result outcomes with face-to-face courses (Talent-Runnels, et al., 2006), broad implementation and rapid growth across higher education, and provision of access for many students who would otherwise have to forego higher education. Although students appreciate the flexibility and convenience offered by online learning environments, online students do experience a sense of isolation (Abrahamson, 1998; Bessar & Donahue, 1996; Rahm & Reed, 1998), and express being more satisfied with face-to-face courses (Allen, Bourhis, Burrell, & Marbry, 2002; Simonsen, 1997; Klesius, Homan, & Thompson, 1997). In her study, Carr (2000) found higher dropout rates for distance education (10-20%) over traditional programs. Reasons given for the high dropout percentage of distance learners include limited support and service of distance education, dissatisfaction with teaching methods, unfamiliarity with the technology used, and student feelings of isolation. Hara and Kling (2000) also found that online students were frustrated by the communication and technical difficulties that impeded interaction. Arbaugh (2000) argues that the lack of social interaction was a factor that depressed student satisfaction in online learning. This dissatisfaction with online learning can be seen in high rates of attrition for online students (Chyung, 2001). Ashar and Skenes (1993) found that while adults were attracted to a higher education business program because of strong learning needs; those needs were not strong enough to retain them. However, retention was positively impacted by establishing a social environment within the program. Students need to feel involved and develop relationships with other students in an online course (Rovai, 2002a). Following from an appreciation of the social nature of learning, learning and cognitive development are recognized as substantially constituted through social participation and interaction (Vygotsky, 1978; Wenger, 1996). In order to understand how students’ online learning satisfaction is affected by their social participation and interaction with others, the present study seeks to build a model of the elements that contribute to the social nature of online experience and influence satisfaction in online learning environments. We begin by framing our research with key social constructs for understanding the social nature of online learning. Next, we describe the use of path analysis, to examine the relationships among these constructs. Our results, present a model for explaining how these social constructs influence satisfaction in online courses.