Realism and Naturalness:

1. Realism and Naturalness: A Potential Model for Understanding Physical and Social Presence

2. Presence: “there” even when you’re not • Physical presence • a sense of “being there” • an “illusion of non-mediation” • Social presence • a sense of “being with others” • a sense of inclusion in a group

3. Presence: “there” even when you’re not • Physical presence—VR, VE, and SVE • a sense of “being there” • an “illusion of non-mediation” • Social presence—text-based OE • a sense of “being with others” • a sense of inclusion in a group

4. Presence: “there” even when you’re not • Physical presence—VR, VE, and SVE • a sense of “being there”: immersion • an “illusion of non-mediation”: transparency • Social presence—text-based OE • a sense of “being with others” • a sense of inclusion in a group

5. Presence: “there” even when you’re not • Physical presence—VR, VE, and SVE • a sense of “being there”: immersion • an “illusion of non-mediation”: transparency • Social presence—text-based OE • a sense of “being with others”: copresence • a sense of inclusion in a group: immediacy

6. Presence: “there” even when you’re not • Physical presence • Immersion: Realism • Transparency: Naturalness • Social presence • Copresence: Realism • Immediacy: Naturalness

7. Physical and Social Presence Survey • Initial Instrument • Physical Presence: 6 items • Social Presence: 7 items • Interaction: 6 items • Administered to 30 doctoral students in text-based online ed. research course

8. Physical and Social Presence Survey • Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha = .93 • Factor analysis • Four factors w/ Eigenvalues over 1 • With three factors • 8 items loaded in all 3 • 7 items loaded in 2 • Only 2 items loaded in 1

9. Physical and Social Presence Survey • Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha = .93 • Factor analysis • Four factors w/ Eigenvalues over 1 • With three factors • 8 items loaded in all 3 • 7 items loaded in 2 • Only 2 items loaded in 1 Content analysis: Presence in general

10. Physical and Social Presence Survey • Revised instrument • Replaced the 2 general presence items and 1 other item that loaded across all 3 factors • 3 new questions addressed immersion and transparency (awareness of real world, engagement of senses, and “going into” the OE). • Administered to 43 respondents in undergraduate writing course and graduate CECS courses

11. Results • Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha = .884 • Factor Analysis • 4 items loaded as physical presence • 5 items loaded as social presence • 5 items loaded in both factors • These 9 items were on both surveys

12. Results of Combined Datasets • Reliability: Cronbach’s Alpha = .843 • Factor analysis: • Only 2 factors: 61% of variance • 3 social presence items loaded in both factors • Multi-dimensional Scaling (ALSCAL)

13. Multi-dimensional Scaling (ALSCAL)

14. Conclusions • A realism-naturalness model might work for both physical and social presence • Reliable and valid instrument for both types of presence that can be used in a variety of online environments