Community of Inquiry Framework: Establishing Community in an Online Course

Using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, the author conducted a mixed method research study to examine the existence of the three CoI elements in a graduate-level educational technology online course. The author also looked at student perceptions and preference for community in online learning. High mean scores on the CoI showed that all three elements of CoI were more than adequately addressed in the course, particularly teaching presence. Lowest scores indicated that some students were uncomfortable expressing themselves in an online environment and felt a lack of freedom to disagree with class members. Demographic data showed that students preferred a sense of community but were not so fond of collaborative assignments that are essential for building the community they desire. Since collaborative assignments demand a greater degree of communication and ability to bring problems to an adequate resolution, it is plausible that inhibitions in expressing oneself may become more pronounced when more collaboration is required. Social media such as social networking sites, video and audio sharing websites, wikis, and blogs offers online spaces where people interact, publish, collaborate, share, and communicate with others in virtual communities. Community members typically share common interests based on lifestyles, religion, politics, work, and hobbies. The explosive growth in online communities is evidenced by the fact that in a single month (September, 2012) more than an estimated 750 million people used Facebook, 250 million used Twitter, and 110 million used LinkedIn (eBizMBA, 2012). A sense of community is what attracts people to form groups and persist in these kinds of environments. Therefore, it is possible that when incorporated into a distance learning environment, a sense of community might improve student retention and engagement in learning. However, there are significant differences between social and educational communities that might affect the potential of community for education purposes. Unlike popular social web sites, educational communities are focused on learning in a social environment, not merely in socializing. In social communities, members tend to create their own network and they do this around common interests. In contrast, course structure, leadership, and learner connectedness must be designed into a course for a sense of community to develop in learning communities. Furthermore, in social networking, the motivation is high because people have a personal desire to participate. In online learning communities, students may choose to enroll in a course but they may not necessarily want to take a required course in a program or they also may or may not be fond of the idea of socializing in a classroom environment. Moreover, unless the course content is of high interest to students, they may not have the incentive to socialize as a community in the Journal of Interactive Online Learning Lambert & Fisher ! 2 course. Finally, personality traits give people different preferences for socializing such as with extroverts and introverts so it is uncertain whether students truly desire community in online courses. Even with these wide variations in community and individual preferences, some researchers have found that a sense of community does tend to enhance learning (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000; Palloff & Pratt, 2007; Rovai, 2002). Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2000) however, take educational community to another level as they emphasize that it is not simply a social community that enhances learning, but rather, a community that is built around inquiry that will sufficiently challenge and intellectually engage students. Since retention and engagement are sometimes problems inherent in online learning, it warrants further investigation to understand if a sense of community will increase learning potential and whether students prefer this feature during educational pursuits. This is especially important as newer technologies provide excellent tools that make community-building an easy task. Online technologies, when appropriately utilized, can encourage community among distant learners and challenge learners beyond what might be possible in courses without technology. Content management systems and Web 2.0 web sites such as wikis can be used to seamlessly design a course environment that easily integrates online resources such as slide shows, videos, podcasts, and documents. Blogs, discussion forums, and virtual classrooms can be used to provide collaborative and interactive opportunities for students and synchronous and asynchronous communication among students and between students and the instructor. All these technologies allow students to explore, create, and share their new knowledge and these are the types of activities that encourage deeper engagement with learning (Jacobs, 2003). This paper will describe an exploratory research study examining the community of inquiry that was purposefully designed in an online graduate-level distance education course in the program of Educational Technology at a large Midwest university. Courses in applied disciplines like this inherently require a greater degree of technical proficiency due to the use of more advanced technologies. This study is important because of the impact these technologies might have on the development of community in online learning.