Teaching and social presences supporting basic needs satisfaction in online learning environments: How can presences and basic needs happily meet online?

This study examined the hypothesized relationships between perceived teaching presence and social presence accounting for social-contextual factors in online learning environments and online students' basic psychological needs satisfaction. Participants enrolled in online courses at universities in the United States responded to an online survey and the survey data (N = 462) were analyzed using three hierarchical multiple regressions. Findings indicated that perceived teaching presence was a significant positive predictor of the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, with greater contribution than social presence to the perceived satisfaction of the need for competence. Social presence was also a significant positive predictor of the three basic psychological needs, with greater contributions than teaching presence to the perceived satisfaction of the needs for autonomy and relatedness. These results point to the significance of both teaching presence and social presence as two key online presences that can positively influence students' basic psychological needs satisfaction, which is known to be crucial to higher-quality self-determined motivation and engagement. Our findings have implications for CoI theory development and practical implications for online teaching and learning.