The changing nature of online communities of inquiry: An analysis of how discourse and time shapes students’ perceptions of presence (original) (raw)
Related papers
Internet and Higher Education
This paper presents an empirical study grounded in the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, Archer, 2000) and employs quantitative content analysis of student discourse and other artifacts of learning in online courses in an effort to enhance and improve the framework and offer practical implications for online education. As a theoretical framework the purpose of the widely referenced CoI model is to describe, explain, and predict learning in online environments. The current study grows out of an ongoing research agenda to understand student and faculty experiences in emerging technology mediated education systems and to make recommendations for theory and practice. The major question addressed here is whether the CoI model adequately explains effective learner behavior in fully online courses and to articulate a new conceptual element -learning presence. Results indicate that learning presence is evident in more complex learning activities that promote collaboration and is correlated with course grades.
Computers & Education, 2009
In this paper, several recent theoretical conceptions of technology-mediated education are examined and a study of 2159 online learners is presented. The study validates an instrument designed to measure teaching, social, and cognitive presence indicative of a community of learners within the community of inquiry (CoI) framework [Garrison, D. Results indicate that the survey items cohere into interpretable factors that represent the intended constructs. Further it was determined through structural equation modeling that 70% of the variance in the online students' levels of cognitive presence, a multivariate measure of learning, can be modeled based on their reports of their instructors' skills in fostering teaching presence and their own abilities to establish a sense of social presence. Additional analysis identifies more details of the relationship between learner understandings of teaching and social presence and its impact on their cognitive presence. Implications for online teaching, policy, and faculty development are discussed.
In the twenty-first century, more than ever before, businesses, institutions, and societies as a whole need good communicators, capable collaborators, and effective problem solvers in order to thrive. Rapid changes in communication technologies have sparked a re-examination of the university’s role within networked society. Increasing demand for online learning ignites disputes among researchers, teachers, students, parents, administrators, and financially powerful constituents outside the field of education. In an era of accountability to a wider range of audiences than ever before, this dissertation suggests means by which educators can adapt messages about learning to better reach these audiences—through the language of research. To avoid having the quality of online learning evaluated based only upon that which is easily measured, online teachers and learners alike need an empirical means to capture and explain complex processes within the larger e-learning ecology. This study employs the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework as a lens for viewing and analyzing the content of synchronous and asynchronous online graduate-level discussions. In doing so, it explores research questions concerning students’ agency for collaborative inquiry. Findings problematize the perennial dichotomy of academic rigor versus student engagement, suggesting that social elements in the learning process may promote cognitive presence more than previously realized.
Australasian Journal of Educational Technology
This study focuses on the relationships established between the elements that compose the Community of Inquiry (CoI): cognitive, social, and teaching presence. Using three questionnaires, we analyze the students’ perception of synchronous and asynchronous virtual in text-based communication (chats, forums and emails). Starting from the high correlations found between the three elements, we perform a multiple linear regression analysis. The findings show that relationships can be established in the model in which the cognitive elements are strongly predicted, to a greater extent by social presence than by teaching presence. In the forums the cognitive presence is better explained by other presences than in chats and emails. The results reveal the need to analyze the three kinds of presence jointly, assessing the impact of each on student learning. We also determine that the instructor benefits from knowing which tool is more valid for the learning objectives.
Cognitive Presence as a Catalyst for Creating a Community of Inquiry in Online Learning: Insights from a Lebanese Higher Education Context, 2022
An important feature of quality online learning is establishing and promoting an inquiry-based approach to teaching and learning that contributes to enhanced online learning experiences. The Communities of Inquiry (COI) framework dubs high student inquiry in online learning as Cognitive Presence (CP), which centers teaching and learning around students' collaborative exploration of concepts. The purpose of this chapter is to present findings from a study that examined methods and strategies used in online teaching during and after the pandemic, and to explore faculty and students' perceptions regarding this mode of learning. More particularly, the study explored the extent to which CP was manifested in the online learning experience. The study was guided by the COI framework as a theoretical framework and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) as research framework to analyze facilitators of, and barriers to, realizing high levels of CP in online learning. Faculty interviews (N = 8), observations of recorded synchronous sessions (a total of 10), and student surveys (N = 114) were used to gather data. Findings from this study revealed that the sudden shift to online teaching and the absence of formal professional development resulted in an authoritarian/transmissive teaching approach and low student engagement, hence, limited CP. Nevertheless, some students found this approach helpful as they were used to traditional teaching approaches. Faculty engaged in self-directed professional learning, an approach that could be further leveraged in both traditional and online courses.
Internet and Higher Education, 2010
The causal relationships among the three presences in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework are explored and tested in this paper. The CoI framework has been used extensively in the research and practice of online and blended learning contexts. With the development of a survey instrument based on the CoI framework, it is possible to test the hypothesized causal relationships that teaching and social presence have a significant perceived influence on cognitive presence and that teaching presence is perceived to influence social presence. The results of this study confirm the factor structure of the CoI survey and the hypothesized causal relationships among the presences predicted by the CoI framework. These results point to the key role of teaching presence in establishing and sustaining a community of inquiry. Further research is called for to explore the dynamic relationships among the presences across disciplines and institutions as well as understand the existence and role of the specific sub-elements (categories) of each presence.
Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 2009
In this paper we make the case that online learning continues to grow at a rapid rate and that understanding this innovative mode of education requires analysis that is both conceptually and empirically driven. This study inquires into the concept of cognitive presence a multivariate measure of significant learning derived from the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison et al. in Am J Distance Educ, 15(1): 3–21, 2001). The CoI framework conceptualizes online knowledge building as a result of collaborative work among members in learning communities characterized by instructional orchestration appropriate to the online environments (teaching presence) and a supportive and collaborative online setting (social presence). We present results of a study of 5,000 online learners to attempt to further validate the CoI framework and articulate the relationships among the constructs within it. Utilizing cluster analysis we propose that the three forms of presence that characterize the CoI framework can be understood through an equilibrium model and that this model has important implications for the design of online instruction and the success of collaborative online learning.
Social Presence in Online Learning: Multiple Perspectives on Practice and Research, 2017
Social presence theory was the term first proposed in 1976 to explain how telecommunications influence how people communicate (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). Short and colleagues (1976) defined social presence as the degree of salience (i.e., quality or state of being there) between two communicators using a communication medium. This theory became particularly important for online educators trying to understand how people communicated in primarily text-based online courses during the 1990s (Lowenthal, 2009). In fact, social presence was identified as one of the core elements of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, a widely used guide for planning, developing, evaluating, and researching online learning (Boston et al., 2011; Kumar & Ritzhaupt, 2014; Swan, Day, Bogle, & Matthews, 2014). The CoI framework is a dynamic process model of online learning based on the theory that effective learning requires a community based on inquiry (Garrison, 2011,2015). At the heart of the model are the interdependent constructs of cognitive, social, and teaching presence (Swan, Garrison, & Richardson, 2009). Social presence, the first element, is the ability of participants "to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to other participants as 'real people'" (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000, p. 89). The second element, teaching presence, involves instructional management, building understanding, and direct instruction. And the third element, cognitive presence, is "the extent to which the participants in...a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication" (Garrison et al., 2000, p. 89).