Abstract
Distance learning enrollments in higher education continue to grow, and academic leaders increasingly use non-designer instructors (NDIs) to meet demand. NDIs have little control over some aspects of teaching presence, including course design through instructional media resources included in a predesigned master course. This study used the Community of Inquiry (COI) survey to investigate (a) do distance learners’ perceptions of their NDIs’ teaching presence predict their cognitive presence; and (b) does distance learners’ use of instructional media resources moderate the relationship between their perceptions of NDIs’ teaching presence and learners’ cognitive presence. Multiple regression results indicated that perceptions of NDIs’ teaching presence predicted learners’ perceptions of cognitive presence, but learners’ use of instructional media failed to moderate that predictive relationship. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.
Highlights
Distance learning increasingly represents a viable option for higher education attainment
One aspect of teaching presence relates to effective course design, the organization and learning resources that are available in the distance course
This study addressed the problem faced by the increasing population of non-designer instructors (NDIs) whose teaching presence is potentially limited in aspects design through instructional media resources, which may hinder learners’ perceptions of their own cognitive presence
Summary
Participants were students enrolled in a medium-sized private, religious university in the western United States who were enrolled in specific summer and fall semester courses taught by NDIs. Learners’ user activity archived within the learning management system (LMS) represented frequencies of instructional media use as the number of times each respondent viewed one of the resources (see Table 2). Those data were operationalized as the variable labeled Views for analysis. The 34-item COI Survey was used to measure the three components of presence: teaching, cognitive, and social presence. The current study reports acceptable internal consistency values for the COI total score (a = .97) and each component of presence: teaching (a = .94), cognitive (a = .89), and social (a = .89)
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