How is presence supported at a distance? A mixed-methods study of municipal adult distance education

A key concern in municipal adult distance education (MADE) is student isolation. The Swedish Schools Inspectorate has repeatedly found that isolation is a critical problem in MADE.

Students need support on how to interact with their teachers, other students, and teaching materials to succeed in their studies.

This project builds on the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, which focuses on how to reduce isolation, or more specifically, support social, cognitive, and teaching presence in distance education.

The aim is to investigate students’ sense of presence in Swedish MADE, as well as to identify supporting and hindering factors.

While there has been considerable research on students’ sense of presence in higher distance education, such research is lacking in MADE.

The project will be conducted in three phases based on a mixed-methods approach: 1) The established CoI survey instrument will be adapted to the MADE setting, 2) A large-scale survey will be conducted to identify factors that affect social, cognitive, and teaching presence, and dropout rates and grades, in three subject disciplines and 3) Based on the survey results, teachers and students in courses characterized by high and low degrees of presence will be interviewed, to understand and identify examples of supporting and hindering factors from practice.

This project has great potential to provide both theoretical and practical knowledge on the pressing issue of how to reduce isolation in MADE.