Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Date of Award

8-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Instructional Design and Development

Committee Chair

James P. Van Haneghan

Advisor(s)

Lu Ding, Lisa LaCross, Shenghua Zha

Abstract

As online learning continues to grow, understanding how instructional design features influence student experience becomes increasingly important. One critical feature in video-based instruction in instructor presence - the degree to which the instructor is visually or vocally present in the lesson. The purpose of this study was to investigate how varying levels of instructor presence in asynchronous lector videos affect students' perceived relatedness, satisfaction, engagement, content retention, and cognitive effort.

A mixed methods experimental design was employed, with 93 undergraduate and graduate students from a public university randomly assigned to one of three video lesson conditions: Full Presence (instructor visible and audible), Voice Only (audible instructor but no visible presence), and No Presence (text-based with no instructor cues). Each participant completed a short-term asynchronous mini-course delivered through Canvas, followed by retention quizzes and a post-lesson questionnaire.

Qualitive results (ANOVA) showed that instructor presence significantly influenced students' sense of relatedness and satisfaction, particularly when both visual and vocal cues were present. The Full Presence group consistently reported higher levels of relatedness and satisfaction than the No Presence group. Vocal presence alone, as in the Voice Only condition, also showed benefits, particularly when compared to the absence of instructor cues, though not all differences between Full and Voice Only conditions reached statistical significance. For engagement, the Full Presence group reported significantly lower perceived mental effort than the No Presence group, suggesting that instructor presence did not increase cognitive load and may have alleviated some extraneous processing demands associated with text-only formats. However, attention-related results were less conclusive, and comparisons between Full and Voice Only groups did not yield consistent significant differences. Content retention, measured through short quizzes, showed no consistent significant differences across conditions. These results indicate that while instructor presence meaningfully shaped students' affective and perceptual experiences, its direct influence on immediate recall may be limited or dependent on task complexity and duration. Qualitative responses supported the quantitative patterns in that participants in the Full Presence condition more frequently commented about feeling connected to the instructor. These findings reinforce the importance of instructor cues in enhancing the social and emotional tone of online learning environments.

Theoretically, the study affirms the relevance of Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), the Community of Inquiry (Garrison et al., 2000) framework, Transactional Distance Theory (Moore, 1993), and the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2005). Implication for designing videos for online instruction and ideas for future research are discussed. The findings suggest that instructor presence, when deliberately designed and aligned with multimedia learning principles, can play a meaningful role in building engaging and human-centered online learning environments.

Download

Share

COinS