Exploring Social Presence for Economics and Business Preservice Teachers

Social presence is a social interaction that involves emotional and psychological feelings mediated by information technology that aims to create real and meaningful communication experiences in their connectedness in the network. This research aims to construct a social presence model in online learning for economics and business preservice teachers. In theory, social presence consists of three dimensions, awareness, cognitive, and affective as exogenous. Furthermore, the quality of social presence interaction has the concepts of intimacy and immediacy as intervening. This research involved 680 economics and business preservice teachers who studied at Universitas Negeri Medan, Universitas Muhammadiyah Sumatera Utara, Universitas Muslim Nusantara Al-Washliyah, and Universitas HKBP Nomensen Medan. Data collection used a questionnaire distributed randomly to the campuses involved using google forms. Data analysis uses a structural equation model through measurement and structural models via SmartPLS. Findings show that the measurement model is reflective through testing construct validity and reliability. The model structural constructed by awareness, cognitive, affective, intimacy, and immediacy has been proven through GoF testing. Implicatively, cognitive and affective significantly impact social presence through intimacy and immediacy in online learning for economics and business preservice teachers. However, effort is still needed to raise awareness for preservice teachers to accept virtual interactions immediately, which is expected to improve social presence interaction in online learning.