An Investigation of Student Perceptions of Community of Inquiry Presences in Community College Online Education and General Education Courses: A Descriptive Study
Carol Billing & Allen Kitchel
Abstract
Effective pedagogical practices are critical to the success of online post-secondary education students. The purpose of this study was to investigate community college student’s perceptions of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) presences in two online course types, those being (a) a major-specific course and (b) a GenEd course. The CoI questionnaire was used for data collection. Correlation analysis and linear regression were used to model the relationship between the predictive variables of teaching and social presences, and their sub-constructs, to the outcome variable of cognitive presence, and then associated with a set of pedagogical practices. The findings suggest a predictive relationship exists between the predictor variables and cognitive presence, with minor differences between course types. The paper concludes with a discussion of the determined regression model and its relationship to the implemented pedagogical benchmarks. A graphic is provided depicting the influential associations to the cognitive presence within the CoI Framework.