THE IMPLICATIONS OF TRUST ON MODERATING LEARNER’S

ONLINE INTERACTIONS

A Socio-technical Model of Trust

Sónia C. Sousa

, David Lamas

and Paulo Dias

Universidade do Minho, Campus Gualtar, Braga, Portugal

Tallinn University, Narva mnt 25, 10125 Tallinn, Estonia

Keywords:

Trust, Socio-technical Environments, Social Interactions, Learning Online.

Abstract:

The main goal of this paper is to present and validate a socio-technical model of trust. This model aims to

depict the implications of trust on moderating learners online interactions.

This work main motivation is focused on design ways to promote a stronger acceptance sense of community

among learners, by giving emphasis to a more active learning through collaboration and social construction

understanding.

This model aims to eventually provide the means to detect potential trust violations within an online relation-

ship, helping educators to move towards practices of reconciliation. This socio-technical trust model takes

into account individuals trust predispositions and other ﬁve trust attributes and establishes their role on build-

ing relationships, and in developing underlying attitudes, behaviours and beliefs of an learning community.

This paper starts by providing a contextualization on this research background and rationale, that leads to a

the design of the preliminary exploratory model of model of trust, describes it validation procedure by setting

results of a survey procedure.

1 INTRODUCTION

Present times are changing our learning patterns and

those changes demands for new capabilities. This

changes represent a shift of approaches towards learn-

ing, sharing, participating and socializing. What we

saw in the beginning of the Internet era as a relevant

feature, i.e. the Internet capability for be a reposi-

tory of information and data is not longer enough, to-

day we face the new era the social web era. Where

communication is no longer just a merely information

process, and no longer occurs in spaces where usually

its members could remain relatively strangers This in-

creasing availability of user-generated content mech-

anisms and the growth of social networking services

changed society, because it allows a supplemental

form of communication, for support a variety of social

an professional goals and activities. This increased

the tendency for socialization in virtual spaces, as a

consequence new challenges and new capabilities are

emerging. People can easily become a prosumer or

can send or post opinions and messages, or can so-

cialize and create virtual social links with others, or

even can learn at a distance. This new capabilities

allow people to easily relate and interact at a dis-

tance with each other and enables new possibilities

for people with a wide range of backgrounds and with

a broad spectrum of experiences communicate and

share knowledge. What make this excellent spaces for

learning. But in order to do that we must improve our

social skills because these spaces imply that people

are willing to share, a need for seek information, and

imply as well a human capability to detect patterns or

opportunities for learning. This is the ground ﬂour-

ishing for collaboration. All this demands for new

methods, methods formed upon shared commitments,

responsibilities, goals, loyalties. Suggests as well the

need for renew the notions that addresses the existing

duality between the human need for participate, share

and learn and their social experiences and the reuni-

ﬁcation of those experiences in such social dispersed

virtual spaces(Lave and Wenger, 1990). Is this what

motivates and supports this research efforts. We con-

sider participation as an important key for ensuring

the success this socio-technical learning spaces. We

believe that participation emerges from the individu-

als, the collective and their social situations. Scenar-

ios where trust plays foremost an important role as

258

C. Sousa S., Lamas D. and Dias P..

THE IMPLICATIONS OF TRUST ON MODERATING LEARNER’S ONLINE INTERACTIONS - A Socio-technical Model of Trust.

DOI: 10.5220/0003919102580264

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2012), pages 258-264

ISBN: 978-989-8565-07-5

 2012 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

trust represents a key aspect in forming a relation and

is as well a key element to ensure that social action oc-

curs (Weber and Carter, 2003). This research aims to

understand how trust can be a prominent factor in bal-

ancing and fostering individuals participation in such

spaces.

2 RESEARCH APPROACH

Due to the complex and dynamic nature of this re-

search settings, this research is build on an ongoing

actions research approach, which contemplates fours

distinct research stages. This research points towards

the need for: (1) contemplate the trust role in support-

ing interactions; and (2) in balancing and fostering

individual’s participation in online learning scenarios.

During phase one we decided to understand the prob-

lem and its context by identifying what is trust and

understanding how e-learning communities are devel-

oped in online distance contexts. Phase two of this

research contemplates the empirical approach to the

problem, it implementation and result analysis and re-

ﬂection. The adopted strategy in this second phase

includes a mixed approach, which explores above ad-

dressed problem in context. More speciﬁcally it ad-

dressed two main steps: First, work towards propos-

ing a conceptual model that relates trust with learners’

predisposition interact online. Second, work towards

the design of an empirical approach which aimed to

reﬂect, evaluate and provide an analysis to the prob-

lem addressed above. This was due to exploring in-

dividual’s trust predisposition and other ﬁve trust at-

tributes (proposed in the conceptual model, see ﬁgure

1) and establishes their role on building relations, and

underlying attitudes, behaviours and beliefs of an ed-

ucation community.

3 RELEVANT BACKGROUND

This section, explores the theoretical underpinnings

of the structure of the constructs being measure.

It ﬁrstly addresses trust notions and then discusses

and describes relevant trust notions associations with

learning online contexts. The multidisciplinary nature

of trust provides several approaches and discussions

on what trust is and what it represents in terms of sus-

tain and support individuals’ social actions. Trust as-

sumes an important role in modern societies. Trust

can be a key factor either in inﬂuence people’s conﬁ-

dence in a system; either in inﬂuencing the the lack of

or the success of a interpersonal relationship online

(Weber and Carter, 2003). Trust supports and sus-

tain social actions(Coleman, 1988) (Gambetta, 1998)

(Luhmann, 2000). Trust reﬂects the believe on each

other actions, after considering the risks involved,

even when we cannot control each other actions. Such

beliefs and moral choices shaped our perception of a

situation as "trustworthy" or not (O’Hara, 2009). It

takes into account that other’s actions will not vio-

late the moral standards of the relationship (Weber

and Carter, 2003) (Gambetta, 1998). As well can

inﬂuences (positively or not) our behaviors and atti-

tudes. Inﬂuencing for example their predisposition

to relate, cooperate, share and participate in a given

context. From a learning perspective, the increased

omnipresence of social network services and commu-

nities makes the learning process no longer seen as a

passive activity. Internet became a hub of socializa-

tion what transformed learning process. Transformed

as well the way we relate and socialize. This changes

are inﬂuenced by the perceptions of trust in this vir-

tual environments. Again, online learning driven con-

text implies a degree of self-learning, and a need to

be more prepared to participate in the learning pro-

cess by sharing, interacting, collaborate and cooper-

ate. But this socio-technical tools and services pro-

vided for learning can be perceived differently from

situation to situation and this tools and services or

learning process can no longer assume the participa-

tion is for granted, if not this can lead communities

initiatives empty and dissent. Learning must emerges

from interactions between individuals and their net-

works; between individuals and their social situa-

tion; between individuals and their physical activities

(learning instructions and media artifacts) (Swan and

Shea, 2005). In that context people learn by share

opinions, values, norms, beliefs and language. People

work together (provide collaborative actions), which

results in transference of knowledge and way of do-

ing things (Lave and Wenger, 1990) (Mishra, 1996)

(Preece and Shneiderman, 2009) (Brown, 2000). As

a consequence of this differences on personal per-

ceptions more emphasis needs to be addressed to the

course design, planning and learners guidance (Wil-

son et al., 2006) (Attwell, 2007). But we believe that

more focus should remain in attain learners needs,

rather than only on the content. Inﬂexible learning

scenarios could block learners from experimenting,

be creative and could lead to frustration, preventing

them to be motivated to learn. Individual and col-

lective interactions are sustained and fostered by me-

dia affordances (social media tools and social net-

work tools and services) and peoples’ social behav-

iors (providing supportive actions in those learning

spaces) (Swan and Shea, 2005). Efforts should be

THEIMPLICATIONSOFTRUSTONMODERATINGLEARNER'SONLINEINTERACTIONS-ASocio-technical

ModelofTrust

259

addressed towards assessing what motivates people

to participate in; and what contribute to collaborative

learning processes. We should focus on understand

learners’ attitudes towards new technologies; and mo-

tivation toward learning. Emphasizing in providing

opportunities to reﬂect on student’s effective learning

achievements through participation. As well as pro-

viding efforts to support sustain student’s motivation

for learning, avoiding as well feelings of frustration,

confusion that could lead to poor performance. Tech-

nology enhanced Learning is highly consistent with

the ability to reach out to students throughout using

technologies, as well as in promoting a strong sense of

community among learners, with emphasis on active

learning through collaboration and social construction

of understanding (Rovai, 2002). Trust in this con-

text is developed to maintained and support individ-

ual’s beliefs in the credibility of a determined situ-

ation. Trust represents a key element to assure the

success of that relationship. Is a fundamental condi-

tions for stable concerted actions, inﬂuencing individ-

ual’s active participation; and cooperation (Coleman,

1988)(Fukuyama, 1995) (Weber and Carter, 2003)

4 A SOCIO-TECHNICAL MODEL

OF TRUST

This section addresses and provides a proposed socio-

technical model of trust. The socio-technical model

of trust herein proposed is the result of an initial re-

search effort to understand the trust-interconnection

with people’s predisposition to beliefs on human na-

ture. As well as understand the trust-interconnection

other’s ability to be competent, predictable, benevo-

lent, transparent and reliable. As a mean or results of

facilitating and inﬂuencing interactions and as an in-

dicator of people’s conﬁdence degree towards a par-

ticular relationship and towards their predisposition

to relate online (Sousa et al., 2011). This research ef-

forts focused specially on exploring trust aspects that

eventually could affects the capabilities of individuals

to share and interact online, and included:

• The elicitation of main multidisciplinary notions

and trust concepts;

• The identiﬁcation of trust notions and effects that

are related with online patterns and student’s atti-

tudes towards openness and sharing; and

• The identiﬁcation of main components of a com-

munity driven learning environment.

One of the outcomes of this research effort was

the socio-technical model of trust, (see ﬁgure 1), a

cyclic model that takes into consideration individ-

ual trust predisposition and the attributes of trust and

its role on: (1) building relationships; as well as on

(2) the underlying attitudes, behaviours and beliefs.

Reciprocity signs, those related to the presumption

Reciprocity

Competency

Benevolency

Predictability

Honesty

Trust

Intentions to

relate

Relations

Trust Predisposition

Beliefs

behaviours

Attitudes

Figure 1: A socio-technical model of trust.

of whether he or she is trusted. the truster feels more

motivate (i.e. more disposed to trust) if think the

trustee trust him. (Bacharach et al., 2007) (Constan-

tine, 2006) (McKnight and Chervany, 2002)

Competency signs, characterized by the conﬁ-

dence that all parts involved will act in a compe-

tently and dutifully way. Observed through peo-

ple’s online identities (background professional and

personal paths ideas, and achievements) (Giddens,

1991)(Gambetta, 1998) (Constantine, 2006)

Benevolence signs, declaration of good inten-

tions. ’kindness’ raises trustworthiness, but that it

does so only in the presence of perceived conﬁdence.

People’s expectation on the human nature, resulting

in attitudes of caring about the beneﬁts of others.

(Preece, 2001) (Bacharach et al., 2007)

Predictability signs, perceiving others’ intentions

in a given context, signs of interface stability, user

control, and the match between expectations and

performance. Depends on the level and capacity

of perceiving others’ intentions in a given context.

(Bacharach et al., 2007) (Constantine, 2006) (McK-

night and Chervany, 2002)

Honesty signs, is a open person. As predictability,

honesty is a belief that depends on perceiving nature

of the intentions of others. (Bacharach et al., 2007)

(Kramer, 1999) (Weber and Carter, 2003)

Further the intrinsic attribute is the individual’s

predisposition to trust, represented by his or her in-

clination to depend on another in some way, with a

felling of relative security (Bacharach et al., 2007)

(Weber and Carter, 2003). Thus, in this model’s con-

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260

text, trust is perceived as the result of the combina-

tion of its explicit and implicit attributes. Trust is

then a key feature on predicting the individual’s in-

tentions to relate, those perceived through their atti-

tudes, behaviors and believes towards a determinate

situation; which potentially determines how he or she

establishes her or his relations.

5 THE SURVEY DESIGN

In order to validate and reﬁned previous proposed

trust attributes and it inﬂuence on individuals predis-

positions to relate in online contexts, a survey was de-

signed. This survey procedure was designed to iden-

tify individuals underlying attitudes, behaviours and

beliefs when build a online relationship.

Participants. This survey that was randomly con-

ducted on 480 individuals, from which three-hundred

and forty individuals were consider for analysis.

Eighty nine (89) of those 340 participants, were from

Cape Verde and two-hundred and ﬁfty on (251) were

from Portugal. From those ﬁfty-three percent (53.2%)

where male and forty-six percent (46.8%) where fe-

male. All participants work on education contexts and

from those forty-six percent (46.5%) where higher ed-

ucation students, forty-one percent (41.2 %) where

teachers of various levels of instruction, the remain-

ing twelve percent (12.3%) had other educate related

occupations.

Procedure. This survey was conducted using a

online open-source questionnaire questionnaire tool

called Limesurvey. Most of quantitative data collected

in this survey used the means of likert scale of im-

portance, ranging from very important, important, no

opinion to not important. Survey remaining qualita-

tive data included open question that aimed to provide

additional thoughts or contributions important to be

mentioned. Overall this survey accounted for forty-

two questions and was divided in two main parts.

First part regarded, demographic and background data

questions — addressing questions like: place of liv-

ing, age, gender, occupation, participants perceived

level o Internet social interaction and perceived use-

fulness of a sort of social related activities in the In-

ternet; and Second part regarded, trust related asser-

tions — on individuals’ trust expectation when inter-

act online with friends, family and work fellows; to

completely open relations like individuals’ trust ex-

pectation when interact online with a teacher or a stu-

dent, an acquaintances or a strangers. Second part

was constructed based on three main questions, see

table 1. Those question assessed individuals’ expec-

tations when interact online. Using the social, shar-

ing and commitment dimension of a relationship that

occurs in an online e-learning scenario. This survey,

Table 1: Questions addressed in the survey.

Code Questions

[Q1] What make someone trust in

a online person

[Q2] What is the important feature

for be willing to share online

[Q3] What is the important condition

for being willing to communicate online

second part was constructed toking into consideration

the trust predisposition implicit attribute as well and

the other ﬁve explicit attributes of trust described in

the socio-technical model of trust. The nature of the

relationship that occurs online was addressed by six

relationship types, described in table 2. Those type

of online social relations ranged between more close

and intimate relations to open. This is to cross the

Table 2: Nature of the relationship.

Code Nature of online relationships

[FR] friends;

[FM] family;

[W F] work fellows;

[T S] teacher or student;

[AQ] acquaintances; and

[SR] strangers.

nature of the relationship (the social dimension) with

trust related assertions. Survey second part included

a total of 36 questions. In this part we use above three

question and repeated them to assert people’s trust to-

wards different relationship nature, see ﬁgure 2. The

[FR]

[Q1]

[Q2]

[Q3]

[FM]

[Q1]

[Q2]

[Q3]

[WF]

[Q1]

[Q2]

[Q3]

[TS]

[Q1]

[Q2]

[Q3]

[AQ]

[Q1]

[Q2]

[Q3]

[SR]

[Q1]

[Q2]

[Q3]

Figure 2: Survey design second part.

survey collection procedure was followed by a facto-

rial analysis. Results gather from this analysis will be

addressed below.

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261

6 ACHIEVED RESULTS AND

DISCUSSION

Results from this principal components analysis vali-

dates proposed a socio-technical conceptual model of

Trust that relates trust with learners? predisposition

interact online. This principal component analysis

aimed to detect structure in the relationships between

variables.This resulted in four component rotated ma-

trix (with kaiser normalization method). This analysis

was made for each question, see table 1, and included

all relationship natures, see table 2. Further we will

analysis the results with more detail regarding results

on each of the questions.

What make Someone Trust in a Particular Person

Online. This questions analysis contributed for the

validation of trust attributes addressed by the socio-

technical Model of Trust, which regards the nature of

trust in inﬂuencing online relations. Main orientations

assume a social tendency...

• to expect that working fellows or friends will act

in a friendly way;

• to trust that all parts (Strangers and Family) will

act in as expected;

• to assume a common related social presumptions

(a social way of doing things) on acquaintance or

family members attitudes; and

• to expect that strangers will behave as predicted

(assuming existing social values in the relation-

ship).

In detail, the new trust sociability attribute 1, ad-

dresses the importance of trust related relationship at-

tributes like respect, honesty, reliability, empathy and

sympathy. This is a result of items with primary lodg-

ings over .5. The factor loading matrix for ﬁnal solu-

tion is presented in table 3.

New Trust sociability attribute 2, addresses the

importance of trust related relationship attributes like

reliability, respect, be known, shared history and iden-

tity, be kind and be friendly.

New trust sociability attribute 3, addresses the

importance of trust related relationship attributes like

reciprocity, and benevolence in a form of sympathy,

emphatic feelings and reliability.

New trust sociability attribute 4, addresses the

importance of trust related relationship attributes like

reliability, honesty, respectability, shared interests,

sympathy, be a known person.

What is the most Important Feature for Be Willing

to Share Information Online. This questions anal-

ysis contributed for the development of a trust new

Table 3: Factor loadings and commonalities based on prin-

cipal Component Analysis.

Nature of the relationship WF FR

Respect me .703 .75

Have honourable intentions .732 .577

Be a reliable .69 .697

Shared history and identity .673 .613

Be a known person .705 .606

Sympathy, be a friendly person .649 .603

Nature of the relationship (SR) (FM)

Be a reliable .846 .496

Sympathy, be a friendly .641

Respect me .578 .809

Have honorable intentions .543 .803

Be a known person .433 .751

Shared history and identity .74

Nature of the relationship AQ FM

Respect me .795

Shared history and identity .791 .499

Sympathy, be a friendly .783 .456

Be a reliable friend .779

Have honorable intentions .736

Be a known person .682

Nature of the relationship SR

Be a reliable .899

Have honorable intentions .888

Respect me .876

Shared history and identity .863

Sympathy, be a friendly .837

Be a known person .754

attributes, on the nature of people’s sharing orienta-

tion in e-learning contexts. Main orientations assume

a tendency to assume on truthful nature of the shar-

ing interaction with acquaintances, working fellows,

friends, family; to expect that their shared information

and that somehow their digital identity is not threaten

in some manner when share with strangers; and to be-

lief that all parts (students or teacher) will act in as

expected. A tendency to belief that the nature of the

sharing relation is not threaten in some manner when

sharing information with teacher or with students. In

detail, the trust sharing orientation 1, address at-

tributes like honesty, respect, transparency, empathy

and reliability.

Trust sharing orientation 2, address attributes

like reliability, predisposition to share, honesty, re-

spect, transparency and empathy.

Trust sharing orientation 3, address attributes

like transparency, honesty, respect, empathy, reliabil-

ity and predisposition to share.

Trust sharing orientation 4, address attributes

like predisposition to share, empathy and reliability.

What makes an Important Condition for Commu-

nicate Online. This question analysis contributed

for the development of a trust new attributes, on the

nature of interpersonal activities in a relationship.

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Table 4: Factor loadings and commonalities based on prin-

cipal Component Analysis).

Nature of the relationship AQ WF FR FM

Honesty .788 .714 .699 .619

Mutual respect .775 .703 .708 .535

Transparency .755 .677 .637 .623

Empathy .726 .506 .549

Be a reliable source .637 .598 .632

Nature of the relationship SR

Be a reliable source .899

Willingness to share .897

Honesty .885

Mutual respect .88

Transparency .87

Empathy .856

Nature of the relationship ST

Transparency .793

Honesty .791

Mutual respect .737

Empathy .736

Be a reliable source .707

Willingness to share .618

Nature of the relationship FM WF AQ FR

Willingness to share .866 .77 .599 . 627

Empathy .648

Be a reliable source .524

Main orientations assume a tendency to be willing to

develop interpersonal activities online based ona need

for support from others; a need to share similar inter-

ests in all relationship dimensions; a need to predict if

the relationship will occur in secure and trustful ex-

change environments; and a need for develop trust

bound with those we relate online. In detail,Trust In-

terpersonal activities 1, address attributes like hon-

esty, transparency, receive support, secureness and

share common interests.

Trust Interpersonal activities 2, address at-

tributes like secureness and share common inter-

ests, honesty, transparency, receive support and pre-

dictability

Trust Interpersonal activities 3, address at-

tributes like honesty, transparency, felling of secure-

ness, receive support, share similar interests and be

able to predict.

Trust Interpersonal activities 4, address at-

tributes like be able to predict, share similar interests.

7 CLOSING REMARKS

The analysis showed that all ﬁve trust attributes (see

ﬁgure 1) were statistically relevant for supporting and

sustain a online relationship and commitments. Al-

though some of the attributes addressed in the socio-

technical model of trust dependent most of the nature

of the relation, e.g. an online trustful relation with

a friend, family or working fellow is diferent from

Table 5: Factor loadings and commonalities based on prin-

cipal Component Analysis.

Nature of the relationship (FR) (AQ) (WF) (FM)

Honest behaviour .803 .786 .696 .595

Transparent actions .698 .765 .676 .498

Receive support .69 .712 .668 .511

Feel secure .689 .71 .597 .506

Share similar interests .552 .512 .622

Nature of the relationship (SR)

Feel secure .902

Share similar interests .885

Honest behaviour .884

Transparent actions .878

Receive support .847

Predictability .842

Nature of the relationship ST

Honest behaviour .837

Transparent actions .835

Feel secure .828

Receive support .761

Share similar interests .735

Predictability .537

Nature of the relationship FM WF FR AQ

Predictability .866 .796 .639 .522

Share similar interests .653

establishing a relationship between a teacher or stu-

dent, or even a family relative. Mostly because the

trust believes are situation dependent, it varies from

situation to situation. Also, regarding the question of

trusting someone online, the signs of respect and hon-

orability, reliability are important. As well as sym-

pathy, known person and share some common aims

and identities. When we analysis the online shar-

ing orientations, it is noted that becomes important to

foster the honesty signs, reciprocity (mutual respect)

and benevolence (emphatic feelings). As well as re-

liability of the sharing context and sharing commit-

ment.Same regards, with the condition for commu-

nicate online. Honesty signs, felling secure, Trans-

parent actions or reciprocity signs are important at-

tributes. Another important condition mentioned is

support and predictability. This work major contribu-

tions are the intersection of areas such as trust and

the predisposition to relate online, to share and be

involved in social interpersonal exchanges situations

and activities. Achieved results enable us to support

and establish a potential interconnection of a sort of

explicit and implicit trust attributes and predisposi-

tions to relate online. Those perceived through their

individual’s or group’s assumptions through attitudes,

behaviors and beliefs towards their predisposition to

interact with others or with a speciﬁc online learning

artifact. As well affecting somehow the predisposi-

tion to participate and share in those mediums. This

works conclusions lead to the believe that trust is in-

deed a prominent factor in balancing and fostering the

individuals participation in online learning scenarios.

But, without a strategic driven analysis, and without

THEIMPLICATIONSOFTRUSTONMODERATINGLEARNER'SONLINEINTERACTIONS-ASocio-technical

ModelofTrust

263

considering it appropriate factors, with it’s suitable

combinations of situation and time, is difﬁcult to pro-

ceed in a deep and further analysis in how those fac-

tors can support different learning and working life

contexts. This leads to future work proposal on the

need of more clear and deeper understanding of trust

and it’s implications on people’s online learning rela-

tions. Also, stress a need for a clear understand this

trust elements as a key factor for today’s human social

development. This notion could possible be not only

serve as a beneﬁt for each individual, but also, indi-

cate an important element for structured groups or a

community and a society. Further aim is then observe

this intersection between trust and peoples’ efforts to

interact online through time and within a speciﬁc on-

line learning situation.

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