Community Of Inquiry Research Articles

From self-regulation to co-regulation: refining learning presence in a community of inquiry in interprofessional education

ABSTRACT Introduction Online interprofessional education is a collaborative process that emphasizes both individual reflection and shared discourses. A useful analytical tool for understanding the complex dynamics of online collaborative learning is the community of inquiry (CoI) framework, which originally held that there are three types of presence in such learning: teaching, cognitive, and social. However, it was later revised to include learning presence, which is characterized by self-regulated learning. Our study aims to refine the construct of learning presence through a clearer understanding of how self- and co-regulation jointly influence learning outcomes. Methods We surveyed 110 people involved with an online interprofessional medical-education curriculum at a university in Hong Kong. Path analysis was adopted to explore the relationships among 1) the three original presences of CoI; 2) learning presence (i.e., for this purpose, a combination of self-regulation and co-regulation); and 3) two learning outcomes: perceived progress and learner satisfaction. Results The results of path analysis indicated that teaching presence had a significant indirect effect, through co-regulation, on perceived progress. In terms of direct relationships, co-regulation significantly and positively influenced both self-regulation and cognitive presence; and social presence had both positive influence on learners’ satisfaction and perceived progress. Discussion This study’s findings suggest the important role of co-regulation in supporting self-regulation, especially in online collaborative-learning environments. Learners’ self-regulation skills are shaped by their social interactions and regulatory activities with others. This further implies that health-professions educators and instructional designers should create learning activities that facilitate the development of co-regulatory skills, as a means of improving learning outcomes. As self-regulation is an important skill for health professions learners’ lifelong learning, and because their future workplaces will be interdisciplinary in nature, it is critical to provide interactive and collaborative learning environments that will promote co-regulation and self-regulation.

Asynchronous Posting and Reading both Reflect Communities of Inquiry

This descriptive case study explored the presence of a community of inquiry among 4492 secondary learners enrolled in four asynchronous online discussion forums over a full year. The forums (Ethics and Philosophy, Reading, Astronomy and Space, and General Debates, among others not studied) were external to the students’ schools across England. The data had been archived by the sponsoring organisation. We coded 3,113 transcribed messages posted or read by students using Garrison’s Community-of-Inquiry model and coding tools--addressing social, cognitive, and teaching presence within the interactions, plus 307 online questionnaire responses from a cross-section of participants about reasons for posting or not and overall participation plus representative quotes were also presented. Of the 4,492 enrollees, 1,523 (34%) posted messages, 1,748 (39%) only read or viewed posts, and 1,222 (27%) never logged in. This posting rate was almost quadruple the rate previously reported for online communities. Participation was also wider. The largest numbers of messages reflected community-of-inquiry social presence, especially following-up others’ messages. Cognitive presence particularly reflected sharpening thinking skills and knowledge. Teaching presence included asking stimulating questions and providing encouragement. Students who only viewed others’ messages logged in frequently, reported stimulation and strong benefits in learning skills, and only occasionally reported shyness or intimidation. Active student participation and engagement include more than posting messages; they also include reading or viewing others’ posts. Community of inquiry was highly evident in the asynchronous, secondary, online setting. An asynchronous platform, with effective teaching presence, can support important qualities of a community of inquiry.

The mediating role of learner empowerment in the relationship between the community of inquiry and online learning outcomes

The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a rapid shift to online learning, making the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework increasingly relevant for creating meaningful and effective online learning experiences. However, the impact of CoI presences (i.e., teaching, social, and cognitive presence) on students' learning outcomes has been inconsistent in the literature, and a recent meta-analysis has identified a publication bias in this relationship, suggesting the need for a further investigation. This study aimed to enhance our understanding of how the CoI presences influence students' actual learning outcomes by incorporating learner empowerment as an essential learner characteristic. This study was conducted in two undergraduate courses that were abruptly shifted online due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship between the CoI presences, learner empowerment, and actual learning outcomes. The results show that learner empowerment has a direct and positive impact on students' actual learning outcomes, and partially mediates the relationship between CoI presences and learning outcomes. The findings highlight the significant mediating role of learner empowerment within the CoI framework and offer valuable insights into the design of productive online learning communities.

In the end, it’s our future that’s going to be changed: Enquiring about the environment with freedom and responsibility

The environmental crisis—because of its complexity, urgency, unpredictability, and scale—requires a defence of the educational role of philosophy and an account of how to implement philosophical pedagogy in the exploration of environmental issues. This is the aim of this paper. As we face an uncertain future, all educators must consider what knowledge and “know-how” young people need, and what kind of people they need to become, if they are to survive and thrive in this changing world. Philosophical educators cannot assume the ongoing utility of their practice, nor can they expect that their practice should remain the same. In the context of the current crisis, the philosophical exploration of emerging environmental issues raises challenges for those who work in the spirit of Community of Enquiry and these challenges require both discipline and flexibility from practitioners and participants. This paper outlines some of the adaptations that I have used to try and respond flexibly to this predicament. But I also defend an issue on which I believe philosophical educators should hold the line—namely the importance of being non-directive on matters that are philosophically contentious. I defend the view that despite the existential nature of this emergency and its profound urgency, it is not the role of philosophical educators to convince or coerce philosophical learners to adopt particular views on the philosophical questions that this crisis raises. This is because all philosophical enquiry involves creating an environment of freedom and responsibility with respect to what participants believe to be right and true and what they do as a result. Participants in enquiry must be epistemically free to explore and evaluate philosophical questions as they see fit, but they must also be epistemically responsible for the evidence and arguments on which their provisional judgements rest. Equally, participants in enquiry must be ethically free to respond to philosophical problems in ways that express and cultivate their authentic character and commitments, but they remain ethically responsible for their true motivations, their professed values and for the real-life consequences of their words and actions, and their silences and inaction. This paper explores some ways to optimise freedom and responsibility in all forms of philosophical enquiry, drawing specifically on examples of my work with young people on philosophically contentious environmental issues. These examples also highlight some of the adaptations that I have developed to address the challenges that environmental enquiry brings.

Automatic Classification of Online Discussions and Other Learning Traces to Detect Cognitive Presence

Cognitive presence is a core construct of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. It is considered crucial for deep and meaningful online-based learning. CoI-based real-time dashboards visualizing students’ cognitive presence may help instructors to monitor and support students’ learning progress. Such real-time classifiers are often based on the linguistic analysis of the content of posts made by students. It is unclear whether these classifiers could be improved by considering other learning traces, such as files attached to students’ posts. We aimed to develop a German-language cognitive presence classifier that includes linguistic analysis using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool and other learning traces based on 1,521 manually coded meaningful units from an online-based university course. As learning traces, we included not only the linguistic features from the LIWC tool, but also features such as attaching files to a post, tagging, or using terms from the course glossary. We used the k-nearest neighbor method, a random forest model, and a multilayer perceptron as classifiers. The results showed an accuracy of up to 82% and a Cohen’s κ of 0.76 for the cognitive presence classifier for German posts. Including learning traces did not improve the predictive ability. In conclusion, we developed an automatic classifier for German-language courses based on a linguistic analysis of students’ posts. This classifier is a step toward a teacher dashboard. Our work also provides the first fully CoI-coded German dataset for future research on cognitive presence.

Learning MBSE Online: A Tale of Two Professional Cohorts

Research has shown that creating an online learning community is vital in Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) training programs and can be facilitated via the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. For professional learners, an online learning community is influenced by their organizational affiliations. The purpose of this research is to explore learning experiences in groups of professional learners with different and homogenous organizational affiliations in an asynchronous online MBSE module. Through the case study methodology, this research examines four sources of data from two cases: Case 1—learners from different organizations (n = 7); and Case 2—overwhelming majority of learners from the same organization (n = 19). Results showed that learners from the same organization reported higher social presence, which, in turn, corresponded to a higher cognitive presence and higher motivation for future MBSE learning. Based on our findings, we recommend that organizations seeking MBSE adoption coordinate with online course providers to create cohorts to participate in the same offerings to facilitate the process of learning community building. We also recommend MBSE course providers facilitate social interaction on multiple communication platforms and create orientation activities for learners from different organizations to promote social presence.

Researching in fragile contexts: Exploring and responding to layered responsibility for researcher care

Researchers face multiple risks working in fragile contexts such as forced migration, where complex engagements in the field and uneven power dynamics can yield sensitive data. The literature has long identified tensions around participatory methods, emotional labour, vicarious trauma and the need for tailored training and debriefing, with calls for more institutional responsibility seemingly unheeded. This paper draws on the research experiences of three Australian forced migration scholars to explore the lived experience of researching in fragile contexts. It examines strategies to mitigate risks of harm to researchers, particularly through listening as a methodology. We draw from a two-year collective biography methodology using triadic interviews, and from this we discuss the significant emotional and embodied impacts on researcher wellbeing. Our consideration of the layers of responsibility for care led to recommendations at three levels: greater institutional responsibility through the provision of targeted research and ethics training for fragile contexts, community responsibility through the development of a community of ethical inquiry and individual responsibility through debriefing and self-care.

Modelling the role of learner presence within the community of inquiry framework to determine online course satisfaction in distance education

This study sought to investigate the nuances in predictive relationships existing among teaching presence, cognitive presence and social presence as well as learner presence in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework towards online course satisfaction. The study is necessitated by the deficiency of current literature in providing information on the nuances in interaction among the three original presences and learner presence, prior to the final determination of online course satisfaction. Thus, the study adopted a survey design and collected data via a questionnaire from 347 postgraduate students on an online database course. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling was used to validate a definite model on the predictive relationships existing among teaching presence, cognitive presence, social presence, learner presence and online course satisfaction. Results from the structural model analysis proved a statistically significant predictive relationship between learner presence and the three other presences (i.e. cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence). Other relationships established include social presence and cognitive presence; social presence and teaching presence. Finally, online course satisfaction was predicted by social presence and teaching presence. Based on the findings it was recommended that institutions that offer online courses should device concrete strategies that promote social presence and teaching presence since these variables are precursors to online course satisfaction. Finally, the design of online courses should be effective and learner-centred to attract the learner since learner presence determines all the other three ‘presences’ in online learning environment.

Mathematics Teacher Educators’ Decisions in a Time of Crisis: Self-Reflections as a Basis for Community Inquiry

A time of crisis is a time of uncertainty, when many decisions need to be made. This study combines self-reflection, along with community inquiry, as three mathematics teacher educators recount a lesson that they taught in the past and how it was changed due to the COVID-19 crisis. Decisions were analyzed in terms of goals, orientations, and resources. The findings showed that the key issue was the immediate requirement to change one’s regular routine. For some, resources were replaced. For others, dominant orientations receded to the background, and new goals were set. A final reflection conducted after returning to the classroom revealed how challenges during the crisis led to change and the adoption of new goals both during and after the crisis, clarifying our values and leading to the use of additional resources today.

Social presence as means to humanizing online classroom

PurposeThe previous coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has forced pre-service English teachers to conduct their teaching simulation virtually. In the context of online teaching, social presence is vital for effective learning. This skill is perceived as a way to humanize the online learning process. This article explores how social presence is represented in the pre-service teacher's synchronous online classroom and how the development of social presence enables the pre-service teachers to develop their students' well-being and thus humanize online classrooms.Design/methodology/approachThe current study draws upon case study research. The data were collected from (1) synchronous online teaching simulation recordings of pre-service English teachers from the Language Classroom Management course and (2) interview transcripts from three participants. Both data sources were transcribed, coded and analyzed. A two-step coding scheme for pre-service English teachers' social presence was adapted from the Community of Inquiry (CoI) coding template.FindingsThis study reports that all the three social presence categories (i.e. cohesive, affective and interactive) emerged from their online teaching simulation. In addition, the development of social presence to humanize online classrooms from the pre-service teachers was found in these stages: (1) having a role model for teaching, (2) showing respect and being friendly and (3) adjusting the language of instructions to the students' level.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has been limited to the pre-service teachers in one university only. Therefore, this needs to be tested in wider settings and contexts.Practical implicationsTheoretically, this study has added students' well-being as the element that connects social presence to the humanizing online classroom. Meanwhile, practically, in relation to teacher education, this paper also recommends the teaching stages leading to a more humanized online learning.Originality/valueCurrent studies tend to describe social presence in experienced teachers' asynchronous online classrooms. Rarely did the studies explore social presence as practiced by pre-service teachers in the context of synchronous videoconferencing class. Furthermore, there has also been limited research connecting social presence with humanized classrooms.

Adaptability and Teaching Effectiveness Among Mathematics Teachers in Junior Public Schools Amidst the New Normal

This study aimed to determine the level of adaptability in terms of cognitive adaptability and behavioral adaptability and the level of teaching effectiveness in terms of the Community of Inquiry (Co I) in terms of cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Selected through purposive sampling, the respondents of this study were 31 Mathematics teachers who handled virtual, online, and or blended teaching grades 7 to 10, respectively, in Junior Public Schools in Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines. The study utilized descriptive-correlational statistics after data collection through a questionnaire. The study used descriptive statistics, Pearson’s product- moment correlation coefficient (r), and the chi-square test of independence to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that age range by generation and teaching performance based on IPCRF had a significant impact on the level of adaptability and teaching effectiveness and that the level of adaptability of teachers had a high significant impact on the level of teaching effectiveness among the respondents. The millennials, who mostly had “Outstanding” teacher performance ratings, had higher levels of adaptability, and hence have higher levels of teaching effectiveness than the older generation during online, blended teaching amidst the new normal due to Covid-19. It was recommended that older teachers must be given priority to training and peer support for them to be able to adapt to online and modern century teaching effectively.

Facilitating cognitive presence in online professional doctoral education: implications for practice-based programs

ABSTRACT This study employs the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to examine strategies that foster cognitive presence in a specific discipline context – the professional education doctorate (EdD). The article presents the results of a qualitative inquiry revealing how a cohort of doctoral students (n = 15) developed cognitive presence in an online Practicum course that aimed to move students through the dissertation process. We analyse participants’ perceptions of how instructional strategies impacted their skills in conducting practitioner research and to what extent they were able to apply the new learnings to practice. The findings indicate that engaging students in an authentic, dissertation-focused pilot study, as well as regular discussions of progress with peers enhanced cognitive presence related to practitioner inquiry. Although teaching presence was key in building a community of inquiry, instructors need to also be purposeful in course design to develop cognitive presence to support students’ dissertation progress. The study underlines approaches for using CoI in online EdD education to design spaces for collaborative construction of knowledge, development of practitioner-research skills, and the application of solutions to problems of practice as key tenets of scholarly practitioner preparation.

Ann sharp’s concept of personhood and the spiritual dimension of the community of philosophical inquiry

In this paper, I critically explore Ann Sharp’s conception of personhood as it figures in the theory and practice of the community of philosophical inquiry (CPI). Through surveying Sharp’s rich and varied philosophical output, it will be shown how Sharp’s conception of personhood as a trilateral relationship (between self, other(s), and community) maps onto “the Three C’s” of critical, creative, and caring thinking that make up the practice of Philosophy for Children. After thus presenting Sharp’s conception of personhood, the paper brings into view an aspect of said conception which could benefit from further development. This potential shortfall in Sharp’s thought is identified as “the problem of closure”. In highlighting the problem of closure, I will indicate how Sharp marshals the concept of faith in her conception of CPI as a spiritual community, a relationship that is coincident with personhood itself, as it stands for the bond that ties together the individual (self and other(s)) and the collective (community) dimensions of CPI. I argue that faith serves, among other things, as an agent of closure between the individual and the collective in Sharp’s thought. In considering the function of faith in CPI, I will suggest an avenue of possible resolution to the problem of closure in Leonard Nelson’s conception of “the Socratic spirit” as the embodiment of “reason’s self-confidence”. Finally, the paper looks ahead to David Kennedy’s writings on the intentionality structure that governs the relationship between the individual and the collective in CPI as a resource that promises to offer a more rigorous and systematic treatment of the problem of closure.

The value creation in communities of inquiry: a systematic synthesis

The Community of Inquiry (COI) has become increasingly popular as a practical framework that promotes critical thinking and improves learning skills in online environments. In order to encourage the COI, this study proposes to investigate learning VALUEs based on teaching presence (TP), social presence (SP), and cognitive presence (CP), applying a VALUE creation framework as an assessment tool. A quantitative research approach was used to analyse 16 research works. Firstly, this investigation reviewed the activities of COIs as the vital link between COI and VALUE creation. Secondly, these activities were evaluated using Wenger et al.'s framework. The related results show that COI activities generate immediate, potential, and applied VALUEs, however, it does not positively promote reframing. The activities of TP positively promote immediate VALUE, especially its categories of promoting discourse and direct instruction. Most activities of SP promote both immediate and potential VALUEs, whose indicator of open communication positively creates immediate VALUE whereas the activities of CP promote multiple VALUEs. These findings address the research gap regarding how COI contributes VALUE by improving learning experiences in virtual environments and what determines the generation of the VALUEs. The benefits of this study will guide practitioners (teachers, online course developers, and instructional designers) who aim to design and match related activities of COI to maximise the VALUE creation.

Hyflex Pedagogies: Nurturing teacher presence in multi-modal learning spaces post pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the demand for new modes of teaching and learning. One such approach is Hybrid-Flexible or HyFlex. Utilising a HyFlex model, teachers teach students at the same time face-to-face (f2f) and synchronously online through video-conferencing software while enabling other students to engage in asynchronous learning. Designing, developing and facilitating multiple modes of participation in HyFlex is a challenging endeavor which calls for specialized pedagogical knowledge, competencies and skills. To date, there is a dearth of literature which explores the pedagogies that integrate physical and virtual learning spaces to successfully support the HyFlex learning environment. One of the most widely adopted pedagogies during the pandemic was the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model which focuses on presence as a concept and how social, cognitive, teacher and emotional presence can support student learning in an online environment. The paper analyses the literature to explore the meaning of presence and CoI in a hyflex learning environment. It explores the role of the teacher in designing the optimum learning environment for students. However the role of presence in a hybrid learning environment has not been explored. This paper argues that teachers need to understand how students exist in learning spaces and how the can be co-present in physical, synchronous and asynchronous spaces to enable them to ensure equitable access and design inclusive hyflex learning environments.

Evolution of Didacticians’ meta-didactical Praxeologies and Documentation Work

This study is aimed to understand the connections between didacticians’ meta-didactical praxeologies for the design and implementation of a teacher professional development program and their documentation work for the program itself. Didacticians are mathematics education researchers with the role of teacher educators. Data presents a case study, in which two didacticians (the authors) generate documents for the work with seventeen in-service mathematics teachers working at the lower secondary level, on inquiry mathematics tasks. The results reveal relationships, not yet fully addressed in research, between the intertwining evolution processes of the didacticians’ meta-didactical praxeologies and their documentation work, nurtured by the collaboration with the teachers. The whole process is led by the evolving goal of the professional development program, from the promotion of the classroom implementation of inquiry mathematics tasks to the broader goal of building an inquiry community with the teachers. This study could contribute to the introduction of an interpretative model for the didacticians’ work for the design and implementation of a teacher professional development program, based on the combination of Meta-Didactical Transposition and Documentational Approach to Didactics frameworks.

RheumMadness: Creating an Online Community of Inquiry in Rheumatology.

To evaluate the educational impact of RheumMadness, an online tournament of rheumatology concepts grounded in social constructivist theory, as viewed through the community of inquiry (CoI) framework. The curricular scaffold of RheumMadness was a bracket of 16 rheumatology concepts competing as "teams" in a tournament. Participants could create and review "scouting reports" about each team, listen to a RheumMadness podcast, discuss on social media, and submit a bracket predicting tournament outcomes according to the perceived importance of each team. Engagement was measured with direct analytics and through self-report on a survey. The survey also assessed participants' educational experience using an adapted 34-item CoI survey, which describes the cognitive, social, and teaching presences in a learning activity. One hundred brackets were submitted. On average, each scouting report was viewed 92 times, each podcast episode was downloaded 163 times, and 486 tweets were sent about #RheumMadness from 105 users. The survey received 58 of 107 responses (54%). Respondent agreement with prompts related to each CoI presence was: 70.3% cognitive, 61.7% social, 84.9% teaching. Reported engagement in RheumMadness correlated strongly with overall CoI survey scores (r=0.72, P < 0.001). RheumMadness created an online CoI that fostered social constructivist learning about rheumatology.

Autistic Students within the Community of Inquiry

The standard pedagogy within Philosophy for Children courses is the community of inquiry. In this paper, I argue that the current form of the community of inquiry does not properly accommodate autistic students. Using observations from Benjamin Lukey alongside my personal testimony, I illustrate how autistic students may struggle within the community of inquiry. Importantly, I argue that this need not be the case, as the community of inquiry can be made more inclusive if it were to emphasize collaboration instead of verbal dialogue.

‘Put heads together’: How engaging communities of inquiry propels innovation-driven entrepreneurship in emerging economies

ABSTRACT Recent studies have indicated that innovation-driven entrepreneurship is far more beneficial than traditional entrepreneurship in emerging economies. However, how to propel this type of entrepreneurship remains somewhat unclear. Thus, this study applied social cognitive theory to reveal how engaging communities of inquiry stimulate innovation-driven entrepreneurship in emerging economies. A hierarchical regression analysis on a sample of 207 Chinese entrepreneurs revealed that open community engagement predicts active innovation-driven entrepreneurship, whereas more focused community engagement hinders it. Both relationships are weakened when the entrepreneurial environment is seen as more munificent. The findings advance the entrepreneurship literature by adding understanding of the two kinds of community engagement and explicating their effects on innovation-driven entrepreneurship from the social interaction point of view. That constitutes practical guidance for entrepreneurs, and a basis for governments seeking to encourage innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

Examining gains and pains of a new virtual internship design

This study investigated how student effort and the course design influenced an online internship in China. A cohort of 95 postgraduate students became distance learners in a credit-bearing internship course due to COVID-19. The course leader applied the action learning framework to prompt student online collaboration and group inquiry. The framework assumes the importance of self-reliant learner autonomy in virtual internships. After the course, researchers analyzed the effects of self-directed learning with technology on a multidimensional community of inquiry in a virtual environment. The study also identified students’ narratives that explain how self-directed learning with technology interacted with three elements of virtual communities of inquiry: social, cognitive, and teaching. Findings explain how virtual internships can be facilitated through a community of inquiry model. Educators and practitioners may consider the model to demonstrate student-staff partnerships (Fitzgerald et al., 2020) to achieve quality transformation of internships from face-to-face mode to distance education.