Communicating instructor presence: Construct development and validation of a new measure
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The idea of presence as a communication construct has received considerable attention from a wide variety of scholars. However, multiple definitions and their subsequent scale developments have become problematic for the discipline. This is especially prevalent considering the sustained interest in understanding presence as facilitated through online rather than face to face contexts. In this study, some of the limitations of previous iterations are resolved by forwarding a new term, instructor presence, grounded in Brown and Levinson’s (1978; 1987) politeness theory and specific to classroom instruction. This theoretical lens suggests that certain sociological factors embedded within an instructor’s communication (i.e., social distance, power, and ranking of imposition) contribute to students’ perceptions of bearing and subsequently affect their communication behaviors. To construct a measure of instructor presence, this paper presents an overview of the elements believed to influence each factor individually, as well as three independent focus groups with students and faculty members to further refine and develop the construct.