Investigating the Level of Teaching Presence, Cognitive Presence and Social Presence at Web - Based Courses: The Case Study of Shahid Beheshti University

When teaching in an e-learning environment, we are faced with a different and new environment compared to the face-to-face. Lack of teacher and learner physical presence in e-learning environments can turn into major problem in such courses, since, it has diverse effects on students' satisfaction, durability, and academic performance. Hence, the present study was conducted to investigate the Levels of teaching presence, cognitive presence and social presence as three components affecting the sense of presence in web-based courses at Shahid Beheshti University. The research method applied in this study was descriptive survey method. The statistical population included all students studying at Shahid Beheshti University  in  academic year 2019-2020. for this study, the sample size of 380 students in the master 's degree was selected from the available sampling method, which were 293 questionnaires analyzed. To answer the study questions, Friedman and Wilcoxon one-sample t-test and rank test were applied. One-sample t-test showed that the rate of all three components, namely, teaching, cognitive, and social presence was significantly lower than the mean average (p<0.01), and therefore, at an unfavorable rate. According to Friedman rank test, the highest mean rank belonged to social presence and the lowest mean rank belonged to cognitive presence; teaching presence was in the second rank. There was a significant difference among the components of teaching, cognitive, and social presence (p<0.01). Based on the results of Wilcoxon test, there was a significant difference between the rank of teaching presence and the ranks of cognitive and social presence, as well as between the ranks of cognitive and social presence (p<0.01).