Social Presence and the Digital Divide: Challenges Faced by Elementary Educators in Online Learning

Environmental factors impact the virtual instruction experience of elementary public school educators in Virginia, including the districts of this study. First, technological factors affect online instruction, including the specific technologies that educators and district administrators implement to delivering educational material and content to their students online. Teachers who are skilled at working in virtual environments, and who enjoy doing so, are more likely to facilitate good learning experiences for their students (Allcoat & von Mühlenen, 2018; Kim, 2020). An additional technological factor is students’ lack of equitable access to technology and internet resources, or the digital divide (Leech et al., 2022; Vogels, 2021). Second, social factors may create challenges in online instruction compared to traditional face-to-face instruction. For example, teachers must learn specific strategies to ensure social presence—student engagement with other students and the instructor—in online formats.