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This study examined student perceptions of teaching presence and communication timeliness in asynchronous online courses. Garrison, Anderson, and Archer's (2000) community of inquiry model provided the framework for the survey research methodology used. Participants were 59 student volunteers taking 1 or more asynchronous online graduate courses. Communication data showed the instructor mean communication timeliness for each of the 7 course groups. Five courses had a neutral level of perceived teaching presence, and 2 courses had a perceived teaching presence mean higher than the neutral range. The 2 classes with the greatest amount of time elapsing between communications also had the lowest mean teaching presence scores. Findings suggest further research regarding teaching presence and communication timeliness is warranted.
INTRODUCTION
The benefits and drawbacks of online distance education have become an important aspect of research (Hismanoglu, 2011; Perry, 2008; Saadé, He, & Kira, 2007; Schwartzman, 2006; Subramanian, 2006). Online distance education environments are continually available to both student and faculty participants every hour of every day and can lead to students and faculty interacting with the course environment and each other at unspecified times. The time taken to respond to these asynchronous communication attempts is referred to as communication timeliness.
The purpose of the study was to determine the relationship between student perceptions of teaching presence and communication timeliness of instructors in online courses. Student perceptions of teaching presence were gathered using an anonymous online survey, the Teaching Presence Survey (TPS), framed by the community of inquiry model. In this study the time taken by instructors to provide direct feedback to students' assignments was referred to as communication timeliness. Communication timeliness data between the students and instructors was gathered from the college's course management system archive. These data were used to determine the hourly average (mean) instructor communication timeliness for each course group. Teaching presence scores and the mean instructor communication timeliness were used as the variables in the Pearson r to determine if a relationship existed.
The framework of this study was the community of inquiry model. The community of inquiry model integrates three elements: teaching presence, cognitive presence, and social presence (Garrison et al., 2000). Teaching presence was the focus of the study and utilized separately from the other elements. The teaching presence...