Community of Inquiry in Adult Online Learning: Collaborative-Constructivist Approaches

The adult education literature emphasizes community building in order to increase effectiveness and success of online teaching and learning. In this chapter the Community of Inquiry Framework that was developed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) has been introduced as a promising theory for adult learning in online environments. The chapter discusses the potential of the CoI framework to create effective adult online learning communities by utilizing the research findings from an online course. Overall, the research findings showed that students had positive attitudes toward the community developed in the course and that their perception of constituting elements of the community of inquiry was significantly related to perceived learning and satisfaction. IntroductIon The advances in information and communication technologies, changing needs of individuals, and globalization are the influencing forces for all societal endeavors including adult learning (Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner, 2007). Training and degree programs and other continuing educational opportunities for adults are increasing. In today’s world, learning occurs for adults in a variety of settings from formal institutional settings such as college or university to non-formal and informal contexts such as home or community at different times and for different purposes (Selwyn, 2006; Merriam, Caffarella, Baumgartner, 2007). However, adults are busy people and they have pressing responsibilities that often restrict participation in these learning environments. The main obstacle identified by adults is the lack of time, mainly due DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-828-4.ch006