Social presence is significant in the discussion on the online learning setting. Especially during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a large number of educational institutes across the world shifted their academic activities to online learning platforms, the need for deepening the understanding of social presence and finding ways to enhance social presence in online courses has increased. Thus, a qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to explore student perceptions of social presence and discover strategies that can be perceived as increasing social presence in online courses. The population was current or previous online students, within at least six months, and were over eighteen years of age. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather qualitative data regarding students’ experiences of perceiving social presence in online courses from eight participants. The findings from the thematic analysis of the data demonstrated that students perceived social presence as a factor in learning efficiency and drop-out rates of online courses. Teachers’ significant role and responsibilities in the increase of social presence in online courses were also addressed in this research. Besides, four strategies (collaboration, personalised and prompt feedback, humanised course materials, and social media) that are perceived as increasing social presence in online courses were discovered. The findings can be used to develop future online course designs that aid teachers in increasing social presence as perceived by students.

Yiran Hou. Student Perceptions of Social Presence in Online Courses. Frontiers in Educational Research (2023) Vol. 6, Issue 16: 47-58. https://doi.org/10.25236/FER.2023.061609.

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