Search results

As online learning has become more prevalent, how learners interact with each other in those learning environments has become more salient. To develop effective levels of interaction, students must feel comfortable to express their ideas and views. For this reason, this paper aims to look at how individual students’ levels of social presence affect germane cognitive load. Germane cognitive load is the amount that students are able to construct schema and can be seen as analogous to learning.

This study looks at the results of survey data (n = 433) that investigate the relationship between social presence and germane cognitive load. The students were surveyed from the Open Cyber University of Korea in the fall semester of 2018.

The present study found a statistically significant positive relationship between social presence and germane cognitive load. The study found a Spearman’s correlation coefficient of 0.595. Furthermore, the sample was divided into a high, medium and low grouping of social presence. Among these groupings, the high level social presence had the highest level of germane cognitive load, and the low level social presence had the lowest level of germane cognitive load.

This result shows the importance and value of developing levels of social presence in online environments. Some research has shown relationships between student interaction and learning, but the present study looks directly at social presence and germane cognitive load. From this research, the authors can see the value of encouraging higher levels of social interaction in online learning environments.

This study aims to examine how lecturers at a South African university navigated teaching and learning in the current educational landscape obscured by the global pandemic. The authors examine how lecturers employed a community of inquiry (CoI) in their online classrooms within the context of emergency remote teaching (ERT). The study further aims to ascertain students’ feedback concerning current ERT practices at the university toward cultivating a CoI. Doing this would offer more appropriate interventions and support for lecturers and students from, within and for an African context. If not, instructors might risk reproducing and perpetuating the same outdated pedagogies before the pandemic.

A mixed-method research design informed by a pragmatist paradigm was used. Primary data were collected from 40 lecturers at the university through online questionnaires of which 10 lecturers responded to e-mail interviews. The original CoI survey was distributed among 150 students in the Faculty of Education at the university.

The findings revealed that, despite the rushed and trial nature of the use of ERT, there were instances of a CoI among students. The findings further revealed that the majority of the lecturers were not adequately prepared for ERT as a result of limited experience with asynchronous and synchronous online teaching. There was evidence of an absence of a strong active teaching presence that was found to have negatively influenced the development of social and cognitive presences during ERT.

Only a single faculty at one university was selected in this single case.

The results of the study have significant implications for faculties and academic staff who are currently teaching online in response to the teaching challenges paused by the COVID-19 pandemic. These findings will assist lecturers in developing appropriate pedagogical intervention strategies to enhance strong and active teaching and social presences necessary for cultivating the cognitive presences among students during ERT.

This is one of the first empirical studies to explore the influence of ERT on the cognitive, social and teaching presences at a university in an African context. The findings and conclusion of the study are novel as they relate to the development of appropriate pedagogical practices and intervention strategies suitable for ERT in response to the current education crisis.

This study's purpose is to propose a research model based on the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine whether gamification and social interaction as environmental stimulus antecedents to learners' perceptions of presence can affect their continuance intention of massive open online courses (MOOCs).

Sample data for this study were collected from learners who had experience in taking gamified MOOCs provided by the MOOC platform launched by a well-known university in Taiwan, and 353 usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

This study demonstrated that learners' perceived gamification, learner–instructor interaction and learner–learner interaction in MOOCs positively affected their cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence elicited by MOOCs, which jointly expounded their continuance intention of MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses, and the research model accounts for 72.6% of the variance in learners' MOOCs continuance intention.

This study employs the S-O-R model as a theoretical umbrella to frame learners' MOOCs continuance intention as a series of the internal process, which is influenced by gamification and social interaction. Noteworthily, three psychological constructs of the community of inquiry model (i.e. cognitive presence, teaching presence and social presence) are adopted to represent learners' internal experiences of MOOCs usage. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more commonly adopted as organisms in prior studies based on the S-O-R model, whereas psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study enriches the S-O-R model into an invaluable context.

This paper aimed to determine the self- and co-regulation influences on the community of inquiry (CoI) for collaborative online learning.

A quantitative survey was used on a sample of (N = 626) enrolled postgraduate students in a South African Open Distance and e-Learning (ODeL) university. The measuring instruments were the CoI and the shared metacognitive surveys. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to determine the association and influence of self- and co-regulation on the CoI.

The results indicated that self- and co-regulation related to the CoI (teaching, cognitive and social) presences. In addition, the results revealed that self- and co-regulation influence the CoI presences. Self-regulation had the highest influence on teaching and cognitive presence, while co-regulation influenced social presence.

The study’s convenience sampling method from a single university limited the applicability of the findings to other online learning environments.

Higher educational teachers who encourage student self- and co-regulation may enhance their online teaching, cognitive and social presence when studying online. The research’s findings may be valuable to teachers to enable them to provide a more collaborative and interactive online learning environment and promote productive online communities.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge about the relationship between teaching, social and cognitive presence and self- and co-regulation within the CoI framework. Furthermore, there has also been limited research focussing on the dynamics of shared metacognition within the CoI framework in an ODeL context.

This study aims to explore how the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model (2000) is used to categorize students’ and teachers’ interactions in an asynchronous discussion and how these interactions are able to help students add quality to their narrative writing.

The interactions were categorized based on teaching, social and cognitive presences suggested by the CoI model. Data collection included online archives and students’ narrative essays. Content analysis was performed based on the presences suggested by the CoI model. Scores for the narrative essays were based on Tribble’s (1996) assessment scale.

The findings indicated that the interactions were significantly related to the cognitive, teaching and social presences. However, the cognitive presence indicated a distinctive pattern. As this was a qualitative study, there were emerging themes. The study found that critical thinking was minimal, as the writing task was related to creative thinking.

It is suggested that writing in the online environment should also consider different types of writing.

The emerging themes can be used to enhance and complement the CoI model when used in the Malaysian setting.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on university students during the Movement Control Order (MCO) and Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO). MCO was introduced in March 2020, and the learning process switched from face-to-face to online learning in schools and universities. Subsequently, with the reduced number of daily cases and active cases of COVID-19, the Malaysian Government implemented RMCO from 10th June to 31st December 2020, which had more relaxation of restrictions. This study particularly focuses on students studying in higher education institutions by analysing the impacts of the community of inquiry on students learning performance. The construct of the community of inquiry includes social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence.

This paper provides quantitative analysis, independent sample t-tests and multiple linear regression on the students’ learning performance using the framework of community of inquiry. This paper presents the analysis of the online learning preference of 282 university students during MCO and 456 students during RMCO.

The results showed that there is a significant difference in students learning process during MCO and RMCO. The findings also indicated that the social presence is the most important factor in affecting learning performance during the MCO period and it changed to teaching presence during RMCO. Students lost motivation and could not perform well using online learning methods during the MCO period but the situation improved during RMCO.

This research helps to identify the impact of the pandemic on higher education and provides insights into reshaping the future of higher education system.

Students are isolated from their peers in the learning process and struggle to adapt to the new normal in online learning. The teaching faculties are picking up new skills to deliver online courses and manage the risk as best as they can. This study presented the impact of the pandemic on students learning performance and explored the space for universities as business organizations to provide better infrastructures and platforms for online learning while battling with cash flow and debt level during this challenging time.

Students need peer support and guidance from the faculty team in their learning journey. The study provides a better understanding of how we shall promote a better higher education environment, either blended or online learning.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of the community of inquiry on students learning performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students suffered during the MCO period and the learning experience got better when they were able to adapt to the changes. The higher education system needs a reform and the agency theory in corporate governance plays an important role in the transformation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors influencing English as foreign language (EFL) learners’ satisfaction using learning management systems (LMS) in blended learning.

This study conducted a survey method among 164 intermediate EFL learners of Safir Language Academy in Iran. Survey data were analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) method, while Smart PLS was used to test the hypotheses and to validate the proposed model.

The results indicated that teaching presence, cognitive presence, information quality and system quality affect satisfaction of blended learning. However, there is not a significant relationship between social presence and learners’ satisfaction in blended learning using LMS.

This study proposes a comprehensive model which has been developed using the indicators of community of inquiry model, system quality and information quality to contribute to our understanding of key factors impacting EFL learners’ satisfaction.

The outcome will help academic institutions to provide effective English-medium instruction for the enhancement of EFL learners’ satisfaction and a basis for factors influencing EFL learners’ satisfaction in blended learning.

The present study aims to further examine the persuasive effect of pictures in a print ad according to the recipient’s ability to process the information and to observe to what extent the presence of a picture could negatively influence recipients’ attitude toward the ad’s verbal claim.

Two studies were designed to manipulate the presence vs absence of an attractive/unattractive picture, the kind of verbal claims (affectively based vs rationally based) and the recipient’s ability to process the ad (cognitive load vs no cognitive load).

Main findings showed that the presence of an attractive picture elicited an unfavorable attitude toward the functional verbal claim when recipients were not cognitively charged. Furthermore, it proved to be a mediator of the influence of pictures on attitude toward the ad. The positive influence of an attractive picture on product evaluation and purchase intention was greater under a cognitive load but showed contrasting results for price perceptions. For the unattractive picture, cognitive load was found to be a moderator only when recipients had to infer the product price.

The present research emphasized the negative influence of attractive pictures on functional verbal claims and the moderating role of cognitive load on pictorial stimuli either acting as peripheral or central cues in the persuasive process.

Practitioners may want to consider that an attractive picture in advertising is not always the best route for persuasion, especially when the verbal ad content emphasizes the product’s properties.

The present study provides new insights regarding the role of pictures in advertising persuasive effectiveness. Until now, no research had addressed the extent to which the presence of a picture could affect processing of an ad’s verbal claims. Additionally, the present study expands research on persuasive communication and affirms the necessity of more intensively investigating the role of pictures in advertising under the rubric of information processing level.

The Open University of Sri Lanka implemented a fully online professional development course on open educational resources-based e-learning (OEReL), which adopted a scenario-based learning (SBL) design within the constructivist pedagogy. It was designed to facilitate knowledge construction in a collaborative manner with the support of open educational resource (OER), mainly through peer-facilitated discussion forum activities. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study on how peer-facilitated discussions affected the OEReL process, what factors supported and hindered peer-facilitated discussions, and what challenges were faced during the process.

The OEReL course consisted of five modules with 14 discussion forum activities. Content analysis of the threaded forum discussions was the key data collection and analysis strategy based on the community of inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison and Arbaugh, 2007). It was supplemented with participants’ reflections and focus group discussions.

The three elements of CoI – cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence played a major role in knowledge construction in the OEReL process. A complementary relationship between cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence was observed, where the three elements have interacted in supporting knowledge construction. Overall, the findings reaffirm the significant of role of instructors in cultivating the three presences within a peer-facilitated environment, by enabling learners to engage with the content in a meaningful manner through appropriate course design, structure and leadership.

Forum discussions created an opportunity for participants to engage in meaning making through social negotiation, where facilitation became a shared responsibility among instructors and learners. Peer-facilitation was the key strength that promoted critical, analytical and reflective thinking, as well as self-regulated learning. The SBL design, learning tasks with OER integration, and instructor guidance were the most supportive factors, while time constraints due to the participants’ workload was challenging.

Through carefully orchestrated, well-structured and pedagogically sound OEReL environments, peer-facilitated forum discussions can be designed creatively and implemented in a meaningful manner to enhance knowledge construction.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on the students studying in higher education institutions pre and during Movement Control Order (MCO). MCO was introduced in March 2020, and the learning process must switch from face-to-face to online learning in schools and universities. This study particularly focuses on university students by analyzing the students' motivation, the community of inquiry and learning performance. In total, three factors are examined in the construct of the community of inquiry, namely social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence.

This paper provides quantitative analysis and paired sample t-tests on the students' learning motivation, the community of inquiry and learning performance. This paper presents the analysis of the online learning preference of 282 university students and examines whether there is significant difference in preference before and during MCO.

The findings indicated that the students lost motivation and learning performance using online learning methods during the MCO period. There is a lack of infrastructure to support the learning and social support from the lecturers and peers.

This research helps to explore improvements that are needed to manage such a pandemic to support teaching staff and students.

The COVID-19 is a pandemic that has affected the learning process of the students, and it should not be neglected even when it is over. Policymakers shall consider providing more training and better infrastructures to cater to smooth Internet connection and platform for online learning. Students are not able to focus on learning using online learning methods and, they lack motivation during the pandemic. The teaching faculty also need to be well-trained in delivering online courses and to be more tech-savvy.

With the detailed analysis of the students' learning motivation, the community of inquiry and learning performance, it helps to promote a better education environment.

This is the first study to examine the learning motivation and performance model as well as the community of inquiry during the pandemic. It is evident that university students initially have a high level of motivation and community of inquiry before the pandemic but yield a significant drop during the MCO. The paper presented how COVID-19 seriously impacted on the learning experience.