Socio-cognitive presence during a distance, synchronous, group learning task: An empirical study conducted with three groups of teachers
This study focuses on the sociocognitive presence in e-learning. At an empirical level, it aimed at identifying how the social interaction between teachers—carrying out a distance collective activity as part of a training programme—created a sociocognitive presence within a virtual class. The paper offers a table of interactional indicators likely to reveal this specific form of presence in e-learning. The results show that the surfacing of a sociocognitive presence, stemming from the transactions between these teachers, would tend to be influenced by the very functioning of the group among which the collective activity is carried out. This functioning would both depend upon the members’ personal interest to get involved in the activity as well as factors linked to the group emerging through the digital environment, intermediate in carrying the group verbal and paraverbal transactions and actions.