The Effective Digital Socrates: Developing Trust in Virtual Learning Communities

1. The Effective Digital Socrates: Developing Trust in Virtual Learning Communities ALN Orlando November 2001 Nancy W. Coppola S. Roxanne Hiltz Naomi Rotter

2. Trust Development in Virtual Teams • Online faculty role changes • Faculty perceptions of online community building • Correlation to theories of swift trust with coding scheme • Strategies for trust formation

3. Online Faculty Role Changes ( Prior ALN presentation) • Authors designed and conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with faculty • Cognitive role: deeper cognitive complexity • Affective role: new tools to express emotion • Managerial role: more detail, structure, and monitoring

4. Swift Trust – concept developed by Meyerson, Weick, and Kramer (1996) • Swift trust is a concept relating to temporary teams whose existence is formed around a clear purpose and common task with a finite life span. • Its elements include a willingness to suspend doubt about whether others who are "strangers" can be counted on in order to get to work on the group's task...

5. Swift Trust elements • ...and a positive expectation that the group activity will be beneficial. • It is built and maintained by a high level of activity and responsiveness.

6. Global Virtual Teams (prior research) • Distinct communication and behaviors • Analysis of behaviors and actions both in early and later stages of group work • Jarvenpaa and Leidner 1998

7. Research hypotheses • Faculty who become successful virtual professors overcome the coldness in the electronic media with social communication clues in discussion conferences. • The most effective online teachers get a good start in the very first week of online classes • Once established, swift trust remains

8. Research Methods • Selected most effective teacher using data from student questionnaires • Examined instructor’s online discussion forums or conferences • Analyzed Introduction conference in which instructor and students introduce themselves

9. Coding the Data • Interaction Process Analysis (Bales, 1950) (modified) • Pattern analysis software (QSR NVIVO)

10. Swift Trust Coding Scheme • Positive expectations about the course • Negative expectations about the course • Social emotional positive • Social emotional negative • Task area – asks for help • Task area – gives help • Technical/logistical/procedural

11. Early Communication • Out of 297 coded passages in the Introductions Conference • 35 instances of instructor social emotional positive (32) or negative (3) • 74 instances of student social emotional positive • Most frequent is “hello” or variations

12. Expectations • Enthusiasm facilitates early trust • Evidence of positive expectations about the course in 34 instructor instances and 89 student instances • “I’m looking forward to getting to know you. I hope I will have interesting discussions about diverse issues in the class.”

13. Task-Related Communication • Coping with technical and task uncertainty is important • Evident in giving information • 15 instructor passages • 53 student passages • Evident in asking for help • 6 instructor passages • 12 student passages

14. Later Communication • Later trust formation is shown by predictable communication • Frequency counts show consistent pattern in first weeks and in weeks nine and ten of classes

15. Strategies for Community Building • Establish early communication • Team members need to perceive the instructor’s presence as soon as they enter the course • Develop a positive social atmosphere • Team members respond to perceived caring in course • Model solidarity, congeniality, and affiliation

16. Strategies for Community Building • Reinforce predictable patterns in communication and action • Students need carefully structured activities and regular feedback • Involve team members in tasks • Group members need to be involved in meaningful tasks in the first week.

17. Summary • In order to build swift trust at the beginning of a course, the instructor needs to structure clear contributions for each student to make, help them cope with any technical or task uncertainties, model and encourage response to each others' contributions. • Early encouragement of social communications (and explicit statements of commitment, excitement and optimism) also strengthen trust.

18. Conclusions • Swift trust does form in virtual learning communities • Faculty overcome coldness in electronic medium with social communication • Effective online teachers get a good start in first week • Once established, swift trust carries over if high levels of action are maintained

19. Future Research • Analysis needs to go beyond one instructor • Findings need to be correlated with semi-structured interview • Compare findings with an analysis of instructors not highly rated

20. For more details: N. Coppola, S. R. Hiltz, and N. Rotter. "Building Trust in Virtual Teams." Proceedings of IEEE Professional Communication Society 2001 International Professional Communication Conference. Santa Fe, New Mexico, (October 2001).