Exploring the relationships among the dimensions of a community of inquiry in an online learning environment

Abstract The community of inquiry contends that meaningful learning occurs in the interaction among the teaching, social, and cognitive presences. Although studies have validated the close relationships among the three presences, the roles of teaching presence indicators in students’ social and cognitive presences need to be further explored. Therefore, 592 Chinese college students were investigated through an online questionnaire. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the collected data. Results demonstrate that the three indicators of teaching presence accounted for 56.9% of social presence and 53.4% of cognitive presence. Specifically, design and organization, and discourse facilitation had significantly positive correlations with social presence, while there was no significant correlation between direct instruction and social presence. Additionally, design and organization, discourse facilitation, and direct instruction had significantly positive correlations with cognitive presence. Results indicate that different indicators of teaching presence play different roles in students’ social and cognitive presences.