Higher education students’ learning perception in the blended learning community of inquiry

Abstract

Scholars have asserted that the community of inquiry framework is a robust framework in which teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence integrate to attain successful learning experiences. Therefore, researchers have shown a growing interest in extending it by adding learning presence to reflect students’ self-regulation practices in online and blended learning environments, which is important in such learning environments. Despite this, there is an ongoing debate about whether the additional presence is structurally related to the existing community of inquiry counterparts. Furthermore, empirical evidence is required to investigate the contribution of the extended community of inquiry framework to fostering students’ learning experiences. Attempting to fill these gaps, this study examines the structural relationships among the extended community of inquiry components and investigates their impacts on students’ learning perceptions (as an outcome). This study’s data were collected from 198 students enrolled in courses taught using the blended learning approach. The results of structural equation modelling revealed that students’ learning presence is significantly influenced by teaching presence and social presence. Moreover, students’ cognitive presence is significantly influenced by the social presence and learning presence. Learning presence was found to be the most important driver of students’ learning perceptions. Furthermore, many significant mediation roles of social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence were statistically proven. This study provides the literature with deep insights into the extended community of inquiry framework. Moreover, its findings provide practitioners with a better understanding of how to conduct a well-designed blended learning community of inquiry that fosters students’ learning perceptions.