Will Online Social Presence be Related to Gender?

1
Will Online Social Presence be Related to Gender?

• Chih-Hsiung Tu, Ph.D.
• Northern Arizona University
• Cherng-Jyh Yen, Ph.D.
• George Washington University

2
Purposes

• Assess the relationship between gender online
  social presence empirically
• Conclude
• Online social presence is not related to gender
• Gender cannot serve as an effective predictor of
  online social presence

3
Online Social Presence

• A vital affective learning factor that influences
  online interaction (Gunawardena McIsaac, 2003)
• The degree of Feeling, Perception, Reaction of
  being connected by computer-mediated
  communication (CMC) to another intellectual
  entity (Tu McIsaac, 2002)
• Online SP not supported physical presence

4
Impacts

• High degree of SP will initiate maintain a
  greater quantity of interactions promote deeper
  interactions (Polhemus, Shih, Swan, 2001)
• SP has positive impacts on cognitive contents
  (Rourke et al., 2002 Stacey, 2002)
• Lack of SP leads to
• a high level of frustration, an attitude critical
  of the instructor's effectiveness (Rifkind, 1992)
• a lower level of affective learning (Hample
  Dallinger, 1995)

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4 Dimensions of SP (Tu McIsaac, 2002)
Interactivity Collaborative activities in which
learners are engaged the communication styles
used by CMC users
Social Context Constructed from the learners
characteristics their perceptions of the CMC
environment.
Social Presence
Online Communication Refers to the attributes,
application, perception of the language used
online.
Privacy Quality and sense of being secluded from
the presence or view of others.
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Online Gender Communications

• Men tend to dominate the communications in FTF
  encounters at the expense lower social presence
  for women
• Similar phenomena between men and women were
  observed in the CMC environment (Blocher Tu, in
  press)

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Online Gender Communications

• Women
• Seek harmonious social relationships, social
  networks, and support to build intimacy and
  rapport through more social-orientated processes
  in the social context dimension
• Use non-verbal cues to deliver their meaning in
  online communications are more adept at
  decoding non-verbal cues (Briton, Hall, (1995).
  
• Men
• more aggressive, argumentative, and
  power-oriented (Soukup, 1999)
• Work alone online
• may conflict with the social communication
  customary for women
• CMC
• less able or incapable of delivering non-verbal
  cues, rendering interactivity between gender
  communications more complicated.

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Participants

• Participants N 395
• Graduate programs, two four-year universities
• Respond to the Computer-Mediated Communication
  Questionnaire (CMCQ) on a voluntary basis
• Female students (n 278, 70.4)
• Males students (n 117, 29.6)

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Measurements of Variables

• CMCQ (Yen Tu, 2006)
• 24 test items
• five-point Liker scale (1 strongly disagree 2
  disagree 3 uncertain 4 agree 5 strongly
  agree)
• Results in the test validation study (Yen Tu,
  2006)
• 12 test items were selected to indicate 4
  first-order factors
• Social context, privacy, interactivity, online
  communication
• Each respondent would be assigned a total score,
  ranging from 12 to 60
• Support to the score internal consistency,
  content validity
• The predictor variable, gender, was measured by
  the test item in the second part of the CMCQ
  asking explicitly of the gender of the respondent

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Data Analysis

• Histograms, descriptive statistics of means,
  and standard deviations (Hinkle, Wiersma Jurs,
  2003)
• A simple regression analysis with the categorical
  predictor variable (Pedhazur, 1997)
• A two-tailed t test of the regression coefficient
  
• Squared multiple correlation coefficient (R2)
  (Pedhazur, 1997)
• Adjusted squared multiple correlation
• Assumption of normality was assessed by the
  normal Q-Q plots
• Levenes test of equality of variance and the
  scatterplot for the standardized residual scores
  and the predicted scores of the criterion
  variable checked

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Descriptive Statistics

• Online social presence scores male female
  groups
• Male (n 117) M 39.230 SD 4.938
• Female (n 278) M 38.241 SD 5.602

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Histograms M vs. F
The histograms of online social presence scores
for male female groups
13
Normal Q-Q Plot M vs. F
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Homogeneity of variances

• Supported by the statistically nonsignificant
  result in
• Levenes test of equality of variance, F(1, .393)
  1.636, p .202,
• Configuration of the data points in the
  scatterplot for the standardized residual scores
  and the predicted scores

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Simple Regression

• With Dummy Coding for the Categorical Predictor
  Variable
• Group membership of different gender groups were
  not statistically significant at the .05 level,
  t(393) 1.659, p .098.
• Observed differences between the means of online
  social presence scores for those two gender
  groups
• not large enough to be deemed as nonzero
  differences in the population. Accordingly,
  online social presence was not predictable by
  gender.

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Simple Regression

• Squared multiple correlation coefficient, .007
• indicated that there was less than 1 of
  variation
• Value of adjusted squared multiple correlation
  coefficient .004.
• The results suggested
• online social presence was unrelated to gender in
  the population and were consistent with the
  results of the aforementioned t test.
• Gender couldnt serve as an effective predictor
  of online social presence

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Discussions

• Levels of social presence between genders are not
  significantly different.
• Women perceive online SP equally to men
• Gender-related communication style differences
  indicated that the current lean text-based
  electronic communication systems tend to promote
  a more direct report communication style.
• Despite male communication styles may dominate
  overpower a womens ability to communicate, women
  perceived their online communication styles
  equally as comfortable as men in this study.

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Discussions

• Womens communication styles
• may be even more effective than mens in the CMC
  venue in certain specific online communication
  environments (Savicki, Kelley, Lingenfelter,
  1996 Savicki,, Kelley, Oesterreich, 1998)
• Female only groups
• described as having high levels of satisfaction
  because they used more coalition language
  self-disclosure, and personal opinion statements
• Male only groups
• demonstrated the opposite style and were labeled
  low group development
• Both genders to be aware of, monitor, perhaps
  strategically utilize communication styles that
  increase social presence.
• Both gender should be empowered be able to
  apply different communication styles for
  different communication purposes

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Discussions

• Illogical that both genders utilize the same CMC
  strategies since SP is measured by the perception
  of the learners.
• Additional critical variables should be examined
  compared
• computer aptitudes, CMC experience, age,
  ethnicity
• before declaring that gender is an insignificant
  factor in online communication.
• Future studies examine
• the multiple relationships between/among these
  additional variables to attain comprehensive
  understanding of social presence

20
Conclusions

• Technology may shape human learning in online
  learning in both genders however,
• Online learners can be empowered by effective
  online instructional communication to further
  shape online communication technologies.