International Journal of Business, Humanities and Technology Vol. 3 No. 2; February 2013 13 The Effects of Instant Messaging on Distance Learning Outcomes Stephen J. Kuyath Department of Engineering Technology University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte, NC 28223, USA. Roslyn A. Mickelson Department of Sociology University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte, NC 28223, USA. Cem Saydam Department of Business Information Systems and Operations Management University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte, NC 28223, USA. Susan J. Winter College of Information Studies, University of Maryland College Park, Maryland20742, USA. Abstract This study examines the use of instant messaging (IM) for student-teacher communication in distance education (DE) courses. IM is a simple Internet communication tool that may reduce the sources of dissatisfaction cited by many DE students and improve their performance, perception of the amount of information learned, and satisfaction with a class. As a relatively synchronous communication tool, IM may reduce the DE student’s sense of social isolation, mediate quality interactions with the instructor, reduce the DE student’s perception of the dissimilarity between the DE course and the traditional course, and facilitate instructor immediacy behaviors. A quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate whether IM is associated with these improvements. The results suggest that DE students who use IM to communicate with their instructor performed better and perceived IM to be higher in social presence than those students who used only asynchronous communication tools such as email. Keywords: Instant Messaging, Distance Education, performance, course satisfaction, social presence 1.0 Introduction Distance Education (DE) is a growing alternative to classroom instruction. It allows access to higher education for those people who otherwise may not have been able to achieve a college degree. DE programs offer students a wide variety of degree options as well as freedom from time and space constraints. For many participants, the appealing features of DE are offset by the perception of social isolation for the distance learner, particularly from their instructor. The computer-mediated communication (CMC) technologies used for communication in the DE class can enhance or reduce this perception of isolation. For example, most distance learners now use email and electronic forums, but there are other popular CMC technologies (i.e., IM) that have not been widely adopted or studied for DE. Instant messaging (IM) is a simple, text-based CMC tool that is integrated into many course management systems and may have some characteristics (i.e.; the social presence) needed to reduce the social isolation cited by many DE students. IM is studied in the context of DE because the nature of DE requires students in virtual classes to synthesize new, and often unclear, information through CMC technologies.