A multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis of the scores for online social presence: Do they measure the same thing across cultural groups?

Online learners and instructors are more diverse in their social and cultural backgrounds than their counterparts in face-to-face classrooms. The diversified social and cultural backgrounds of online learners and instructors complicate the conceptualization of online social presence and pose challenges to instructors in course design. This study conducted a multiple-group confirmatory factor analysis of the scores from the Computer-Mediated Communication Questionnaire (CMCQ), using Structural Equation Modeling, to assess the equality of the underlying factor structure across the low-context culture (LCC) and the high-context culture (HCC) groups. The results suggested that cultural groups perceived online social presence in a slightly different manner. Perception differences were observed in three of the four dimensions of online social presence.