Date of Award

January 2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching & Learning

First Advisor

Woei Hung

Abstract

The present study aimed to achieve one of the goals of the Saudi Arabia Vision 2030, which is the improvement of the quality of teaching approaches and learning outcomes. Additionally, the vision strives for equality among students in all educational institutions, including equality among men and women, who are mostly segregated in all aspects of life (e.g., education). One of the major issues in the online portion of blended learning environments is the lack of social presence. Therefore, the present study used a quantitative, cross-sectional survey design to investigate the influence of gender on the perception of social presence levels in gender- segregated and blended learning environments in Saudi Arabia. The findings of this study revealed that the independent variable (gender) had an insignificant impact on dependent variable (social presence levels) in single-gender segregated and blended learning environments. Moreover, gender was not related to any of social presence four constructs (social context, privacy, interactivity, and online communication). The discussion of this study revealed that COVID-19 pandemic and technology evolution in the last decade could be two major factors that impacted the results of this study. The implications of this study are also included in the discussion section.

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