Interaction, Structure, Social Presence, and Satisfaction in Online Learning

There have been various studies about interaction, structure, social presence and satisfaction in online learning; however, there is not any research which represents the relationships among these concepts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship among these variables. The population of the study is involved 205 university students who enrolled bachelor degree completion program at the Ankara University. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypothesizes. The results of this study indicated that there is a negative correlation between the course structure and interaction dimensions defined by Moore in transactional distance theory. Secondly, online students‟ social presence was predicted positively by interaction and negatively by course structure. Furthermore, online learning satisfaction was predicted positively by social presence. Students are most satisfied when their social presences are high in the online learning.