The study   investigates how social presence and different tools of communication used by   the students at the IT-distance programme Informatics with Focus on Systems   Development at Mid Sweden University affects the quality of communication and   how the quality of communication can be improved. The data for the study is   collected from six semistructured interviews, the participants are students   taking the sixth and last term at the programme. Parts of the questions used   during interviews derive from the framework Community of Inquiry (CoI) by   Randy Garrison, Terry Anderson and Walter Archer. CoI is a framework for   measuring three types of presence: Cognitive presence, Teaching presence and   Social presence. The purpose of the framework is to measure when deep and   meaningful learning arise in education. What quality of   communication is, is described by the students participating in the   interviews, which means that a certain breadth of different interpretations   are explained and summarized. The result of the study consists partly of   quantitative data that comes from the questions received from the CoI-survey   and qualitative data from questions where students responded freely. Through   interviews and analysis, a number of proposals are presented on how the   quality of communication can be improved.

Magister Educationis - MEd / South Africa had a change in government and in education after the 1994 elections. A new curriculum was introduced and some of the underlying critical outcomes were to develop the learners to become critical thinkers. The methodology by which to teach these outcomes was not clear. An intervention programme, Philosophy for Children (P4C) is used in some countries across the world to promote thinking. Research across the world has shown that this programme has the ability to enhance the cognitive abilities of learners exposed to it. Stories for Thinking (SFT) is an intervention programme based on the principles of Philosophy for Children and was introduced in some schools in an Education District of the Western Cape. This study investigates the perceptions of Intermediate Phase educators about the implementation of Stories for Thinking in this Education District. Educators were asked their strengths and challenges of the approach, their way of using it and the support they received. A qualitative research method was used and data were gathered to answer the research questions by means of questionnaires and interviews. Research findings indicate that educators perceived that Stories for Thinking was able to enhance the reading ability of the learners, it showed a significant improvement in their confidence levels, and a positive change in their general behaviour. Language was seen as a barrier to learning, but the evidence indicates that the community of inquiry can be used as a tool to overcome some of the barriers. It seems as if educators valued the support from the project leaders. It is concluded that this kind of intervention programme is worth introducing as long as all the role-players play their part and the setting is conducive. / South Africa

Using Learning Management Systems (LMSs) in educational environmentshas facilitated the communication between students and teachers, and raisednew challenges as well. The aim of this research is to investigate the role ofLMS in the learning and teaching processes from students and teachersperspectives. We adopted a social constructivist worldview. We used aninductive qualitative approach, a single case study design and hermeneuticalapproach for analyzing the interviews and observations. We used Garrison etal. (2000) community of inquiry framework as a theoretical guide for thestudy. The research took place at the School of Computer Science, Physicsand mathematics department at Linnaeus University, Växjö campus. Theparticipants of this research were students and teachers from two masterlevels within the program of Information Systems. The study results indicatedthat students and teachers were content with the usage of Blackboard inorganizing courses materials. Although, most teachers didn’t encourageinteractive and discussion activities on Blackboard, students expressed theneed for such activities to help them in constructing and building newmeanings.

Den tekniska utvecklingen har varit storskalig i världen och människors vardagsliv har ändrats mycket det senaste seklet. I kontrast till detta har den svenska skolan inte sett samma hastiga tekniska utveckling. Samtidigt visar resultat från PISA att elevers resultat i matematik sjunker. Här identifieras två problem som måste lösas. Därför syftade denna undersökning till att underlätta elevers matematikstudier genom att skapa en ny digital lärmiljö. Lärmiljön kom att kombinera matematiska lösningsförslag med nätcoaching. Det gjordes med hjälp av det digitala läromedlet Mathleaks och lärplattformen TalkMath. Därefter analysera hur entill-en nätcoaching fungerade i denna nya lärmiljö. Undersökningen syftade även ta reda på hur elever uppfattar lärmiljön och om den kan vara ett komplement till lösningsförslag. Lärmiljön skapades med grund i pedagogiska teorier såsom Vygotskijs sociokulturella perspektiv, teorier om coaching, synkron kommunikation samt teorier om en-till-en nätcoaching. Två metoder användes för att samla denna data. För det första sparades alla konversationer automatiskt i en databas. För det andra så användes en enkät för att samla elevernas uppfattning av lärmiljön. Ramverket Undersökande relation användes för att analysera alla konversationerna mellan elev och coach. Studenterna valdes ut från en svensk gymnasieskola där en av författarna jobbar, eleverna var i åldrarna 15-18 år. Resultaten indikerade att denna nya lärmiljö var ett bra komplement till lösningsförslag. Det drogs även slutsatsen att lärmiljön hjälpte elevers kognitiva progression. Undersökningen visar att en digital lärmiljö kan vara ett bra komplement för elever som studerar matematik med lösningsförslag. / The digital and technical development of the world have been large-scale and people’s day-today life has changed immensely the last century. In contrast, the Swedish school system has not been seeing the same rapid technical development. As students’ results in mathematics are declining an approach to battle this trend can be to apply this technological development on students’ studies in mathematics. Therefore, this thesis sought to ease students’ mathematics studies by creating a digital learning environment. By combining workedexamples with online coaching the environment was created through the platforms Mathleaks and TalkMath. Then examine how online one-to-one coaching works in this environment. It also sought to analyse how students perceive this teaching environment and if it can be used as a complement to worked-examples. The environment was created based on pedagogical theories such as Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective, coach theories, synchronous communication as well as theory around one-to-one online coaching. Two methods were used to gather data. First, the conversations were automatically stored in a database. Secondly, a survey was used to gather the students’ opinion of the teaching environment. The framework Relationship of Inquiry was used to analyse all conversations between students and coaches. Students were chosen from an upper secondary school in the ages of 15-18 where one of the authors worked. Results indicated that the teaching environment that was created was a good complement to worked-examples. The environment was shown to help student’s knowledge progression. This shows that digital teaching environments can be a valuable addition for students when studying mathematics.

The purpose of this research study was to explore the impact of specific Web 2.0 tools on students' experience of teaching, social, and cognitive presence and motivation when enrolled in a very large hybrid course. With online course enrollments continuing to grow at a higher rate than traditional enrollments in higher education (Allen & Seaman, 2011) and universities increasing class sizes as a way to meet this demand with fewer fiscal resources, it is imperative to find ways to keep students engaged and motivated when enrolled in very large classes. This study used the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) to examine the effect of specific Web 2.0 tools (asynchronous discussion, streaming lectures, multimedia lecture demonstrations, Twitter, and the Second Life virtual world) on teaching, social, and cognitive presence and motivation. The sample population for this study (n = 567) consisted of undergraduate students enrolled in a very large hybrid accounting course in the fall of 2010 at the University of Central Florida. The total enrollment for the course was 943 students. Students could attend face-to-face (f2f) class sessions in a large lecture room that seated 285 students or they could view a streaming video capture of the lectures online. Students were not required to attend the f2f class sessions and could complete the course entirely online. Data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variances (ANOVA), and results of the statistical analyses indicated that students who frequently used the Web 2.0 tools had statistically significant higher mean motivation scores than students who did not use the tools as frequently. Additionally, students who frequently attended the f2f sessions had statistically significant higher mean social presence scores compared to students who attended sometimes or not at all. Attending the f2f sessions, however, did not result in higher mean scores of teaching or cognitive presence. When examined for the impact of the specific Web 2.0 tools, analysis of the ANOVA results indicated that students who used the discussion, streaming lectures, multimedia lecture demonstrations, and Twitter all of the time had significantly higher mean scores of teaching, social, and cognitive presence compared to those students who used the tools less frequently. Further research should be conducted on large hybrid and online courses in different content areas and on those that use different types of learning approaches.

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Inom byggsektorn spelar utbildning och kunskapsöverföring en betydande roll för att främja hållbarhet. Effekten av utbildningen beror på dess implementering och kontext. En noggrann utvärdering av utbildningens användning och effektivitet är avgörande för att optimera resultaten och tillhandahålla nödvändiga kunskaper och färdigheter för att hantera hållbarhetsutmaningar. Tyvärr kan bristande balans mellan miljömässiga, ekonomiska och sociala aspekter i hållbarhetsutbildningar begränsa individens möjligheter att effektivt hantera hållbarhetsfrågor i praktiken. För att framgångsrikt främja hållbarhet inom byggsektorn krävs en djupare förståelse av utbildningens genomförande och integration av kunskap i medarbetarnas arbete. Studien syftar till att undersöka hur en digital internutbildning inom hållbar utveckling på ett stort svenskt byggbolag kan utformas och genomföras för att skapa möjlighet till utvecklad yrkespraktik i byggbranschen. Med utgångspunkt i detta har en kvalitativ och kvantitativ datainsamlingsmetod implementerats för att behandla studiens frågeställningar. En tematiskanalys av studiens kvalitativa data resulterade i sammanlagt tolv teman efter att intervjuer med utvalda individer med olika befattningar på byggbolaget genomfördes. Resultaten visar att det finns brister med byggbolagets digitala hållbarhetsutbildning vilket bidrar till att medarbetarna inte får möjlighet att utveckla önskade kunskaper, förmågor och förhållningssätt för att uppnå utbildningens syfte och genomföra hållbara affärer. Ett antal centrala aspekter som påverkar utbildningens framgång och relevans för såväl medarbetarna som bolaget i helhet har identifierats, vilket ger värdefulla insikter för framtida utbildningsstrategier. Dessa aspekter är bland annat brist på social interaktion och gemensamtlärande, inaktuellt innehåll som dessutom inte har tydliga kopplingar till praktiskt hållbarhetsarbete samt brist på uppföljande moment. Detta resulterade i ett förbättringsförslag med parametrar som kan åtgärdas och implementeras inom utbildningen för att tillgodose byggbolagets behov, tillfredsställa medarbetares behov och uppnå hög kundnöjdhet. / In the construction sector, education and knowledge transfer play a significant role in promoting sustainability. The impact of the training depends on its implementation and context. A careful evaluation of the use and effectiveness of training is essential to optimize results and provide the necessary knowledge and skills to address sustainability challenges. Unfortunately, a lack of balance between environmental, economic and social aspects in sustainability education can limit the individual's opportunities to effectively deal with sustainability issues in practice. In order to successfully promote sustainability in the construction sector, a deeper understanding of the implementation of education and the integration of knowledge into the work of employees is required. The study aims to investigate how a digital internal training in sustainable development at a large Swedish construction company can be designed and implemented to create opportunities for developed professional practice in the construction industry. Based on this, a qualitative and quantitative data collection method has been implemented to address the study's questions, and various sources have also been used to conduct a literature study. A thematic analysis of the study's qualitative data resulted in a total of twelve themes after interviews with selected individuals with various positions at the construction company were conducted. The results show that there are shortcomings with the construction company's digital sustainability training, which contributes to the fact that the employees do not get the opportunity to develop the desired knowledge, abilities and attitudes in order to achieve the purpose of the training and accomplish sustainable business. A number of central aspects that influence the success and relevance of the training for both the employees and the company as a whole have been identified, which provides valuable insights for future training strategies. These aspects include a lack of social interaction where a community of inquiry is not promoted, outdated content that does not have clear connections to practical sustainability work and a lack of follow-up steps. This resulted in an improvement proposal with parameters that can be addressed and implemented within the training to meet the needs of the construction company, satisfy the needs of employees and achieve high customer satisfaction.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation consists of three journal articles that investigated instructor leadership in higher education online learning through the dual lenses of servant leadership (SL) theory and the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. While instructor leadership has been deemed essential for facilitating meaningful learning experiences and higher order learning outcomes within a CoI, the means of instructor leadership are under investigated. Understanding instructor leadership is essential as it directly influences the interaction quality, meaningful learning facilitation, and the overall success of the online learning experience. These studies extended previous research applying organizational leadership theories to the context of higher education instruction, highlighting its application to online learning environments. The first study employed a mixed methods approach to investigate perceptions of SL behaviors among 87 students and seven instructors. Results indicated that instructors’ perceptions of their leadership behaviors were generally higher than students’ perceptions and found positive correlations between SL and student satisfaction with the course and instructor. The study provided empirical evidence to support the contention that instructor leadership is an essential element of a CoI. The second study used a predictive correlational design, analyzing survey data from 148 graduate students to examine the relationship between SL dimensions and the CoI presences. Results showed a significant positive correlation, with SL variables explaining 66% of the variance in students’ perceptions of a CoI as a whole, 73% in teaching presence, 55% in cognitive presence, and 31% in social presence. The study offered insights into what CoI presences may be most impacted by instructor leadership. Finally, a descriptive multiple case study of five instructors used interviews and archived course content to investigate how instructors conceptualized and enacted online instructor leadership. Findings revealed that instructor leadership presence was influenced by personal perceptions of instructor leadership, perceived agency, intentional focus on the nature and quantity of course interactions, and demonstration of SL behaviors that balanced teaching presence and social presence. This study provided additional evidence of the alignment between SL and the CoI framework and also offered examples of instructor SL behaviors useful for practitioners. Collectively, this dissertation underscored the importance of instructor leadership in cultivating meaningful online learning environments, offering empirical insights and practical recommendations for enhancing instructor effectiveness and student engagement in higher education online learning contexts.</p>

Recently, the numbers of Higher Education institutions that are using Web 2.0 technologies and social networking sites are increasing dramatically. These sites offer unique and diverse learning opportunities. There is evidence that a sense of community can be created online and that this community is connected with perceived learning. Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) introduced and developed the Community of Inquiry framework as a dynamic process model and a comprehensive framework to guide the research and practice of online learning communities, and to describe and measure elements supporting the development of these communities. This framework consists of three elements - social, teaching and cognitive presence - as well as categories and indicators to define each presence and guide the coding of transcripts. The categories of social presence are affective responses, open communication and group cohesion. The categories of teaching presence are instructional design and organisation, facilitating discourse and direct instruction. Previous studies suggest that a positive social climate on an online learning community is important as it can improve learning experience and cognitive presence. This study aims to explore and understand the nature of Community of Inquiry presences, in particular teaching presence and social presence. The aim of the study is to understand the influence of a different teaching presence on students’ development of social presence. This study provides a more comprehensive picture of developing students’ social presence over changing teaching presence in a social network environment in a Kuwaiti higher education context. In order to achieve the purpose of this study, the following research questions are explored: 1- How does a students’ sense of social presence change with a different teaching presence in the social network environment within a Kuwaiti higher education context? a. Does a students’ sense of social presence (affective responses, open communication and group cohesion) change as a result of a different teaching presence (facilitating discourse - direct instruction) in the social network environment in a Kuwaiti higher education context? b. Why do participants maintain or change their social presence level during the course? 2- How does the use of teaching presence promote the development of students’ social presence in a Kuwaiti higher education context within the social network environment? The study was conducted in the second semester of 2010/2011 at The Education Technology Department - The College of Basic Education - The Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), within the State of Kuwait. The study was carried out on the Educational Communication module and involved 46 male participants. This study uses the equivalent of mixed methods design to answer research questions. The sequential explanatory strategy is embedded within an applied quasi-experimental approach. Quantitative data is collected and analysed, which is then followed by the collection and analysis of qualitative data. The researcher used a messages analysis and a content analysis approach to reveal the level of social presence in an online community and then develop stimulated recall interview questions. A combination of individual interviews and focus group interviews were used. Garrison et al.’s (2000) social presence coding schemes were developed to make them more suitable in the study context. Quantitative and qualitative data show that there is no significant difference between the effects of facilitating discourse and direct instruction in terms of students’ social presence level. Stimulated recall interviews reveal that most participants cannot distinguish between facilitating discourse and direct instruction. The participants believe that facilitating discourse and direct instruction are similar. The participants’ responses lead the researcher to search for other motives that could promote the development of students’ social presence in the higher education context in the social network environment. The study concludes that there are two factors that could promote the development of students’ social presence. First, instructional design and organisation, such as web design satisfaction, network effect, instructor responsiveness, the nature of the task and awarding degrees. Second, learner-specific matters, such as previous experience, peer influence, friendship, attitude, self-esteem and self-confidence and something I refer to as the Wave Effect.