Teaching Presence, Social Presence, and Cognitive Presence as Predictors of Students' Satisfaction in an Online Program at a Saudi Universit

This study aimed to examine whether cognitive, social, and teaching presence were significant predictors of the overall students' satisfaction of the online program in one of the largest Saudi universities. The used research design was non-experimental and correlational in nature. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine to what extent did cognitive, social, and teaching presence predict the overall students' satisfaction. The data in this quantitative study was collected using a self-report survey. The target population was students who joined the online program, the developed Entesab program, in one of the largest Saudi universities in the eastern region.;The findings of this study showed that overall regression, which had social and teaching presence, was statistically significant, F(2, 811) = 180.291, p > .05. Social presence and teaching presence both were found to explain 31.4% of the variance in students' satisfaction. The overall regression, which predicted students' satisfaction from social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence, was statistically significant, F(2, 811) = 166.18, p < .05, R 2 = .38. The three presences together explained 38% of the variance in students' satisfaction. Cognitive presence was found to have the largest contribution in predicting students' satisfaction and it was a better predictor of students' satisfaction compared with teaching presence and social presence.;Due to the importance of cognitive, social, and teaching presence in predicting students' satisfaction, it is recommended that improving these factors in the online courses be taken into consideration. Providing workshops to the online instructors was one of the recommendations made in order to help in improving faculty knowledge regarding the Community of Inquiry elements in the online environment. Another recommendation to the online instructors is to provide timely feedback, interact, and prepare well for the class activities and assignments. Since cognitive presence in this study was found to be a strong predictor of students' satisfaction, it is recommended that faculty need to focus on this presence especially, and assure that students are able to reach the final stage of cognitive presence.