Internet Learning Volume 4, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 15

Internet Learning Journal – Volume 4, Issue 1 – Spring 2015
The purpose of this literature review is twofold: First to present the existing research
addressing teaching presence and teaching immediacy in online environments, and second to
identify and explore the effect of teaching presence and immediacy on students’ motivation
and learning highlighted in the identified review of the literature. The literature review
intends to address the following research questions:
1. What role does teaching presence play on online learners’ perceptions regarding
virtual learning environments?
2. What role does instructors’ immediacy play on online learners’ experience?
METHODOLOGY
Search Process
A systematic literature review (Ridley, 2012) was conducted to address the abovementioned
research questions. The literature search was carried out on the basis of three
overlapping domains: 1) teaching presence and/or teaching immediacy in online or virtual
environments within educational setting. The Venn diagram below depicts the literature
search process. The shaded area denotes the section of interest i.e., learners’ optimal
learning experiences.
Optimal(Learning(
Experiences(
Figure 1. A Venn-Diagram illustrating the literature search process and area of interests.
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