Levels Of Cognitive Presence Research Articles

Facilitating Cognitive Presence Online: Perception and Design

In this paper, we focus on perceived cognitive presence (CP) in three sections of an intermediate level English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course facilitated online. The researchers intend to demonstrate how lesson design, scaffolding, and a blend of synchronous and asynchronous delivery create perceived CP. Data was collected from the CoI survey (Arbaugh et al., 2008), administered to both student and instructor participants, as well as an analysis of the lesson plans. Focusing on the survey questions related to the four phases of CP, researchers assigned numerical values to responses reported by participants (cf. Arbaugh et al., 2008). Student participants consistently reported lower levels of CP than teachers in the triggering event and exploration phases. Student participants in two of the three sections also reported lower levels of the integration and resolution phases than the teacher, but students in the third section reported higher levels. Moreover, student-reported experiences of CP in all four phases, except the exploration phase, increased with each iteration of the lesson plan. In addition, we analyze the weekly lesson plans in relation to the four phases of CP. Results demonstrate the relationship between lesson plans and perceived CP and will help to inform best practices in online learning contexts.

Designing an Online Discussion Strategy with Learning Analytics Feedback on the Level of Cognitive Presence and Student Interaction in an Online Learning Community

This study investigated the impact of using a discussion strategy with learning analytics on the level of student cognitive presence and interaction. The study used a quasi-experimental design with control and experimental groups. The experimental group applied open-ended discussion and elaborated feedback with learning analytics while the control group applied open-ended discussion and elaborated feedback without learning analytics. A mixed-method approach was used in this study. Data were collected through content analysis, social network analysis (SNA), and interviews. The results showed that the level of cognitive presence in the experimental group increased more than the control group. SNA revealed that students in the experimental group developed more cognitive learning ties with their peers during the process of developing cognitive presence. Interview data showed that students found that the discussion strategy with learning analytics made them aware of their level and quality of interaction and their role in building knowledge in an online learning community. In addition, they felt that the discussion strategy with learning analytics increased their motivation to participate in the discussion. This study provides recommendations on how students can enhance their cognitive presence and learning experience in an online learning community.

Cognitive Presence in Online Learning: A Systematic Review of Empirical Research from 2000 to 2019

This systematic review synthesized research on cognitive presence– the process of collaborative knowledge construction–in online learning to identify trends from two decades (2000 to 2019) of scholarship. A total of 30 articles on cognitive presence were analyzed to gain deeper understanding of the current state of research and identify the gaps in literature. The distribution of publishing years, countries, instructional setting, disciplines, research methods, data collection and data analysis methods, research topics and cognitive presence phases were reviewed. The review shows that the majority of the studies were carried out in higher education in the United States and Canada within the field of education. More than half of the studies used quantitative research methods, of which discussion transcripts were the prominent method for data collection and content analysis was used the most to analyze data. Research focus of these studies was mainly on instructional strategies and learning outcomes in the online courses. Among instructional strategies, reflection on practice, case-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and peer facilitation were most researched strategies. For learning outcomes, levels of cognitive presence (triggering, exploration, integration, and resolution), critical thinking, and interaction were examined the most. In addition, the frequency of students' contributions to online discussion were categorized using the Practical Inquiry Model and revealed that the highest contributions fell within the exploration and integration phases with a small percentage in triggering and resolution phases of cognitive presence. These results provide insights for educators, researchers, and instructional designers into the cognitive presence research trends to improve the quality of online learning.

Enhancing cognitive presence in teachers’ professional learning communities via reflective practice

ABSTRACT The effectiveness of professional learning communities (PLCs) in schools depends significantly on the extent of fostering teacher learning. In this explanatory case study, 16 female teachers from a girls’ high school in Saudi Arabia joined a reflective practice programme where they engaged in collaborative inquiry to solve a problem in their work. The study sought to understand how reflective practice enhances the cognitive presence levels, namely triggering event; exploration; integration and resolution, in a teacher’s PLC. Data sources included transcripts of face-to-face and online discussions and focus group interviews. Analysis of discussions revealed that the participants were capable of movement through the four levels of cognitive presence, reaching the higher levels in which knowledge is built and applied. Interviews analyses generated four themes indicating factors that contribute to the emergence of higher levels of cognitive presence during the reflective practice programme. These factors comprise focus on experience and real practice, long-term training in the school context, social cohesion and the facilitator’s role. This study provides evidence for the potential of reflective practice to support teachers’ learning in PLCs. At the same time, it calls for further research on effective methods that facilitators of reflective practice use to prompt this learning.

Investigating Students’ Perceptions of Cognitive Presence in Relation to Learner Performance in Blended Learning Courses: A Mixed‑Methods Approach

Cognitive presence sustains the learning community through intellectual discourse. Previous studies have explored cognitive presence using mainly quantitative measures in relation to students’ perceived learning. This study adopts a mixed‑method approach to investigate students’ perception of cognitive presence, its relationship with academic performance, and its manifestation in blended learning courses in selected Tanzanian universities. The study adds empirical evidence about the emerging blended learning courses. A total of 351 students were involved in the study. The findings show that students reported a high cognitive presence (mean = 3.9, SD = .51). Furthermore, cognitive presence predicted student performance. Qualitative data show that students explored information through interaction in group discussions and presentations, with the main push being questions from instructors (teaching presence). Students integrated and applied their knowledge by discussing among themselves, teaching others, and practicing what they had learned. Nevertheless, lack of prompts for feedback, time constraints and lack of confidence were linked with low levels of cognitive presence. The study concludes that students experience high cognitive presence, which predicts their academic performance. The findings imply that cognitive presence tends to influence student performance, regardless of the varying levels of its manifestation.

Interaction in a discussion list: An exploration of cognitive, social, and teaching presence in teachers’ online collaborations

AbstractDiscussion lists have gained a significant popularity in professional development research over the past few decades for the opportunity they provide for asynchronous interaction. This article presents findings from a small-scale case study that aimed at exploring the nature of teachers’ asynchronous exchanges in a discussion list. The data comprised the archived log of the messages in a Yahoo Group discussion list by five in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers who volunteered to take part in a hybrid computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher education course in a state university in Iran. The discussion list was incorporated into the course to engage participants in professional dialogue on topics related to technology/CALL. During the initial data analysis, participants’ asynchronous exchanges were grouped as suggestions, questions, unclassified, answers, and delivery, drawing upon Oriogun and Cave’s (2008) SQUAD categorization, following the constant comparative method of analysis. Through a follow-up computer-mediated discourse analysis, cognitive, social, and teaching presence functional moves were identified in the data. Participants used the space not only for socializing and peer instruction but also for constructing knowledge. Despite an uneven pattern of contribution, asynchronous exchanges provided opportunities for knowledge construction at different levels of cognitive presence on topics ranging from technology tools and their affordances/constraints to computer-assisted language testing, materials development, and classroom management. The findings provide CALL teacher education researchers and course designers insights into the potential of asynchronous interaction for online and blended language teacher education.

Enhancing Cognitive Presence in Online Case Discussions With Questions Based on the Practical Inquiry Model

ABSTRACTThe researchers in this study examined the influence of questions designed with the Practical Inquiry Model (PIM), compared with the regular (playground) questions, on students’ levels of cognitive presence in online discussions. Students’ discussion postings were collected and categorized according to the four levels of cognitive presence: triggering events, exploration, integration, and resolution. The data were analyzed using quantitative content analysis and nonparametric statistics. Results revealed that students’ responses to questions based on the PIM resulted in higher levels of students’ cognitive presence—integration of ideas and resolution of problems—compared with the responses based on the regular (playground) questions. These results suggest that instructors can use the PIM as a guiding framework to design questions that may influence cognitive presence in online discussions.

Exploring the Effect of Scripted Roles on Cognitive Presence in Asynchronous Online Discussions

The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of scripted roles on students’ level of cognitive presence in asynchronous online threaded discussions. A mixed methods design was used to investigate: (1) what level of cognitive presence is achieved by students’ assigned roles in asynchronous online discussions; (2) differences between students’ cognitive presence when the asynchronous online discussions occur during a 5-week intensive summer courses versus 15-week regular semesters (fall and spring); and (3) the impact of the types of questions on students’ cognitive presence in role-based asynchronous online discussions across three semesters in an online introductory nutrition course. The participants of this study were 129 undergraduate students at a major public University in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The results of this research corresponds to the findings of previous research that scripted roles can be an effective strategy to improve both learning processes and outcomes. In addition, this study didn’t find any differences in students’ level of cognitive presence when they enrolled in 5-week summer courses or 15-week regular semesters in fall and spring. Finally, this study found evidence that the types of questions related to the level of cognitive presence, i.e., higher level questions can lead to higher level of cognitive presence and vice versa.

The Impact of Roles Assignment on the Quality of Online Case-Based Discussion

The role assignment is an increasingly popular approach for facilitating and evaluating asynchronous online discussions (Strijbos & Weinberger, 2010), with aspirations to enhance students' cognitive presence. However, simply assigning roles may not improve knowledge construction, engagement, or interaction necessary to achieve this goal. Cognitive presence is a critical facet of the community of inquiry, rooted in the critical thinking literature, and is operationalized by the practical inquiry model for assessment purposes (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001).This presentation will share the methods and results of a study investigating changes in the level of cognitive presence while students played roles (starter, wrapper, and skeptic) in asynchronous online case-based discussions. The study was conducted during fall 2013, spring 2014 and summer 2014 in NUTR 295-DL at George Mason University. The research questions for this study were, "What is the impact of role playing on the level of cognitive presence? How is cognitive presence expressed across different roles played by students when they participate in asynchronous online discussion?"

Analytics of communities of inquiry: Effects of learning technology use on cognitive presence in asynchronous online discussions

This paper describes a study that looked at the effects of different technology-use profiles on educational experience within communities of inquiry, and how they are related to the students' levels of cognitive presence in asynchronous online discussions. Through clustering of students (N=81) in a graduate distance education engineering course, we identified six different profiles: 1) task-focused users, 2) content-focused no-users, 3) no-users, 4) highly intensive users, 5) content-focused intensive users, and 6) socially-focused intensive users. Identified profiles significantly differ in terms of their use of learning platform and their levels of cognitive presence, with large effect sizes of 0.54 and 0.19 multivariate η2, respectively. Given that several profiles are associated with higher levels of cognitive presence, our results suggest multiple ways for students to be successful within communities of inquiry. Our results also emphasize a need for a different instructional support and pedagogical interventions for different technology-use profiles.

Psychological characteristics in cognitive presence of communities of inquiry: A linguistic analysis of online discussions

Benefits of social interaction for learning have widely been recognized in educational research and practice. The existing body of research knowledge in computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) offers numerous practical approaches that can enhance educational experience in online group activities. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) model is one of the best-researched frameworks that comprehensively explains different dimensions of online learning in communities of inquiry. However, individual differences, well-established in educational psychology to affect learning (e.g., emotions, motivation and working memory capacity), have received much less attention in the CSCL and CoI research published to date. This paper reports on the findings of a study that investigated linguistic features of online discussion transcripts coded by the four levels of cognitive presence — a CoI dimension that explains the extent to which a community can construct meaning from the initial practical inquiry to the eventual problem resolution. The automated linguistic analysis, conducted by using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) framework, revealed that certain word categories – reported previously in the literature as accurate indicators of specific psychological characteristics – had distinct distributions for each level of cognitive presence of the CoI framework. The most significant finding of the study is that linguistic proxies of increased cognitive load have unique representation patterns across the four levels of cognitive presence. Consequently, this study legitimizes more research on individual differences in general and on cognitive load theory in particular in communities of inquiry. The paper also discusses implications for educational research, practice, and technology.

Community of inquiry as a theoretical framework to foster “epistemic engagement” and “cognitive presence” in online education

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. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2, 1–19; Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7–23]. 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.