Research Article
Rongrong Huang, Nagaletchimee Annamalai
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 16, Issue 4, Article No: ep537
ABSTRACT
To equip students with 21st century skills to be competent global citizens and succeed academically and professionally, information and communication technology tools are being utilized to facilitate deep learning in higher education. This study integrated a small private online course (SPOC) with face-to-face (F2F) classroom learning to design and implement a blended English as a foreign language (EFL) course for deep learning. A mixed-method design was employed to investigate the learning experiences and perceptions of EFL students in the SPOC-based blended learning (BL) environment. The primary objective was to examine whether and how the teaching, social and cognitive presences were established from the perspective of the community of inquiry (CoI) model. Participants were 60 students enrolled in an eight-week English communicative course in a Chinese college. Quantitative data was obtained from the CoI and BL surveys, while qualitative data was gathered through individual interviews with 10 students. The results showed that a CoI was established, and deep learning happened in both SPOC and F2F learning areas with a more salient teaching presence in the SPOC area, a stronger social presence and a higher frequency of resolution phase reached in the F2F area. Furthermore, learners expressed satisfaction with the BL course, perceiving it as effective for English language acquisition. Pedagogical implications were offered to assist educators and institutions in optimizing the use of SPOC-based BL to enhance deep learning.
Keywords: SPOC, deep learning, blended learning, EFL learning, community of inquiry
Research Article
Naureen Shehzad, Tendai Charles
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 15, Issue 4, Article No: ep484
ABSTRACT
Digital pedagogies have impacted traditional approaches towards teaching and as this phenomenon continues to expand, a clearer understanding of the role of instructors’ social presence in online learning environments is imperative. Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods design, this study investigates instructor social presence and its impact on student engagement at higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirates. The study includes data collected through a survey, which was distributed amongst faculty members (n=30), followed by several in-depth interviews. The study explores the relationship between constructs of instructor social presence and student engagement. Findings suggest that instructor social presence positively influences student engagement and attrition. The study also identifies different strategies and barriers instructors face in establishing their online social presence. The study has practical implications for stakeholders and curriculum designers seeking to improve and enhance the learning outcomes in online education.
Keywords: higher education, social presence, student engagement, community of inquiry
Research Article
Amka Amka, Juhriyansyah Dalle
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 14, Issue 1, Article No: ep334
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 had a disastrous impact on the education sector resulting in a boom of online learning systems. This shift has severely impacted the underprivileged students with special needs due to the sudden implementation of prolonged distance learning. Thus, it creates an immense need to analyze distance learning media’s effectiveness during the COVID-19 pandemic for students with special needs. The E-learning readiness and satisfaction of special needs students are scarcely investigated areas in education and e-learning literature. Established on the community of inquiry (COI) model, this study aims to determine the factors that underpin students’ satisfaction with their e-learning experience through the mediated mechanism of students online learning readiness. Surveying 178 special needs students from various Indonesian universities revealed that teaching presence, cognitive and social presence, and content quality, directly and indirectly, influence e-learning satisfaction. This extended and more comprehensive model would help educators better understand e-learning’s use as an effective pedagogical platform, especially in the context of special needs students. Key policy implications and directions for future research are suggested.
Keywords: community of inquiry model, content quality, online learning readiness, students’ cognitive presence, social presence, students’ satisfaction with e-learning experience, teaching presence
Research Article
Cigdem Ozbek, Irem Comoglu, Bahar Baran
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 8, Issue 3, pp. 280-302
ABSTRACT
This study aims to design of the two activities “introducing an innovation” and “role playing” in Second Life (SL) and to evaluate qualitatively Turkish foreign language learner’s roles and outputs before, while, and after the implementation of the activities. The study used community of inquiry model consisting of cognitive presence and social presence as a theoretical frame to discuss the roles and outputs. The participants were twelve students and two English teachers from two different high schools. Teaching and learning in SL took six weeks. The first activity “introducing an innovation” let students develop an innovation and introduce it in English at a congress hall. The second activity “role playing” had four different scenarios in which students would be involved in; travel agency, get permission from family to go out, restaurant, and renting a car. It was found that the two activities in Second Life had various requirements in terms of the teacher, the student and the social environment and that they differed in pre-activity, while-activity and post-activity phases in terms of outputs. When the learning contexts created in this study are considered in terms of cognitive presence, the outcomes of the interaction effect between the teacher, the student, and the social environment were higher in the role-playing activity than in the second activity. Written preparations done before the activity in both teaching activities had positive effects on students’ performance during the activity. The fact that students responded to the questions spontaneously without following the scenario and that they found the correct answer through discussion affected their cognitive presence positively. For social presence, the role-play activity resulted in highersocial presence than introducing an innovation since the students studied individually in the introduction of an innovation.
Keywords: Language education, Technology in foreign language learning, Community of inquiry, Second Life, Role playing
Research Article
Mustafa Serkan Gunbatar, Tolga Guyer
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 8, Issue 2, pp. 158-175
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study, with reference to Community of Inquiry, is to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of Learning activities based on Online Inquiry differentiating as Open and Guided Inquiries. This study employs mixed research method and explanatory design. The data were collected with the Community of Inquiry Index and the Student Process Survey. According to the Community of Inquiry index results, scores of all guided inquiry students in terms of the scale were higher at a statistically significant level than those of open group. Similarly, regarding the subscales of community of inquiry index teaching presence and cognitive presence factor scores were higher in favor of the guided inquiry students. There is no significant difference between the social presence scores of the groups. Obtained qualitative data also support this result. According to these findings, we can arrive at the conclusion that, within the scope of Community of Inquiry, the students in the guided inquiry group had a more efficient working process than the students in the open inquiry group.
Keywords: online learning, inquiry-based learning, community of inquiry model, open inquiry, guided inquiry
Research Article
Rouhollah Khodabandelou, Habibah Ab Jalil, Wan Zah Wan Ali, Shaffe bin Mohd Daud
CONT ED TECHNOLOGY, Volume 5, Issue 3, pp. 257-271
ABSTRACT
It is conceivably important that demographic variables such as gender may have an impact on community of inquiry (CoI) and perceived learning. This study is in response with Garrison et al. (2010) who suggest that there is a need to determine moderation effects of gender on the relationship between CoI elements and perceived learning. A total of 348 undergraduate students were drawn from blended programs in three public universities in Malaysia to be the sample of the study. As research instrumentation, participation in online and face to face session, the community of inquiry questionnaire, and a perceived learning scale were distributed among the respondents. All the questionnaires were validated by a panel of experts, reliability of the instrument was tested in a pilot study and assumptions of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were checked before analyzing the data. The findings of the study have shown that although differences between the two groups of undergraduate students (male and female) were statistically significant, the amount of differences were not enough to moderate the relationship between CoI components and perceived learning in undergraduate blended learning environments. However, the findings indicate that differences between the two groups of undergraduate students (male and female) were statistically significant
Keywords: Community of Inquiry, Blended Learning Environment, Perceived Learning, Gender, Higher Education