Investigating Non-Traditional Graduate Students' Social Presence in Online Collaborative Activities

This case study explores the perceived social presence of 15 non-traditional graduate students engaged in a collaborative activity within a practice-oriented online course. Grounded in the Community of Inquiry framework and principles of collaborative learning, the activity was intentionally designed to include instructor facilitation, structured task design, group formation, and technology integration to support peer regulation. By analyzing multiple datasets, such as students’ reflection papers and instructor-interview transcripts, the findings revealed that non-traditional students’ self-regulation and team leaders’ guidance led to the improvement of team dynamics and accountability. A majority of the team members held each other responsible in the group project. However, task complexity and time management remained challenges for the students. Notably, fewer than half of the students reported difficulty with specific sub-tasks of the group project, which was attributed to their insufficient foundational knowledge. Nevertheless, the findings emphasized the crucial role of instructor’s support in team success and in addressing the students’ knowledge gaps and misconceptions. The instructor provided constructive feedback on their formative assessments, encouraged them to leverage rubrics throughout the collaborative activity, and modelled best practices to support students during the collaborative activity. Moreover, team leadership emerged as an important factor that contributed to better team dynamics and purposeful interactions. This study offers practical and theoretical implications for instructional designers and course instructors seeking to create effective online collaborative learning environments for non-traditional graduate students.