THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL PRESENCE AND PERCEIVED LEARNING IN A VIRTUAL TEACHING-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The present work studies the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the measure of social presence in Harms and Biocca (2004) minds of network (Networked Minds Social Presence Measure) in a sample of 94 university students in Arica, Chile, who make use of virtual teaching and learning environment VLE UTA^med. Reliability and an exploratory factor analysis were conducted with principal components and varimax rotation, and subsequent confirmatory factor analysis. The results show the existence of five subscales with a total of 23 items that explain 81.25% of the variance, a Cronbach's alpha of 0.94, and an adequate adjustment of the model. Additionally, the study confirms a positive relationship between social presence and perceived learning. The study allows us to have a shorter instrument, and adapted to the measurement of social presence in virtual environments for teaching and learning with better results well compared to the existing instruments.