An Empirical Verification of the Community of Inquiry Framework

Despite the explosion of empirical research on online learning effectiveness over the last decade, development and acceptance of theoretical frameworks unique to the online learning environment are still relatively lacking. While there are several emerging models [1, 2, 3], one that has attracted some of the most attention is the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework developed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer [4]. A search of Google Scholar shows that Garrison and colleagues’ article describing the framework has been cited in other works at least 161 times as of September 2006, making it by far the most cited article in The Internet and Higher Education to date. However, while individual components of the CoI framework have been examined empirically [5, 6, 7, 8], studies that simultaneously study all three components of the framework are extremely limited, and those that do exist tend to be conducted by those who developed the framework [9].