An Experimental Study on Community of Inquiry

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to promote social, cognitive, and teaching presence in a community of inquiry. The creation of an effective online educational community as involving three critical components: cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence. Those three presences can be applied to enhance learners’ satisfaction and outcome if instructors use it in right way or right time. The research method used in this study is quantitative approach. An ASKS (Asynchronous Sharing Knowledge System), proposed by Anderson (2003) had been designed for evaluating learning activities. The results of this study reveal 4 discoveries: (a) Providing open communication environment can promote “social presence”; (b) Offering quick responses can enhance “teaching presence”; and (c) learning process may be inconsistent with learning outcome. (d) Setting course-related discourse can augment “cognitive presence”. The implications of this study are also included.