Identifying online communities of inquiry in higher education using social network analysis

Shazia K Jan

doi:10.25304/rlt.v26.2064

Abstract

This article presents findings from a case study on a fully online bachelor’s level course at an Australian University. The study was undertaken to demonstrate the effectiveness of the integrated methodological framework (IMF) in structurally exploring and identifying online communities of inquiry (CoI). The IMF employs social network analysis (SNA) as the key methodology for exploring community-based learning in light of the communities of practice (CoP) and CoI frameworks. The case study was conducted on two offerings of the same online course with some variations in the design. In line with the intentions of the lecturer to engage students in a CoI, the course included guided, facilitated, and graded weekly discussion activities. On application of the IMF, network diagrams and SNA measures clearly showed the impact of the different learning designs on student online engagement within the discussion forums in each semester. Based on structural components of a CoI within the IMF, a comparative analysis of the networks obtained indicated the formation of an unidentified community in S2 and a CoI in S3. The article discusses findings in terms of effectiveness of the IMF, impact of learning design on community formation and learning analytics in online learning. Published: 9 June 2018 Citation: Research in Learning Technology 2018, 26 : 2064 - http://dx.doi.org/10.25304/rlt.v26.2064

Highlights

Since its inception, the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer 2000) has been applied extensively for practice and research in online and blended learning (Garrison and Arbaugh 2007; Kineshanko 2016)
Based on the view that connections formed amongst participants are non-transient paths that represent potential for information flow, for the sake of brevity, cross-sectional networks comprising of a number of weeks of discussion activity are used in the investigation
Since the goal here is to identify the type of community formed at certain points in semester 2 (S2) and semester 3 (S3) and at the end of the semesters, the analysis is restricted to successive cross-sectional networks as opposed to successive cumulative cross-sectional networks

Summary

Introduction

The community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer 2000) has been applied extensively for practice and research in online and blended learning (Garrison and Arbaugh 2007; Kineshanko 2016). Reporting on research between 2000 and 2011, Halverson et al (2013) state, ‘the Community of Inquiry framework seems to be one of the most utilized theories for blended learning...’ Prior to the development of the CoI survey (Arbaugh et al 2008), research using the CoI framework relied exclusively on extensive and time-consuming qualitative analysis of online discourse transcripts between participants (lecturers/ tutors and students).

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