Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Measuring The Community In Online Classes, Beth Rubin, Ron Fernandes

Beth Rubin

The paper proposes both theoretical and empirical approaches to differentiate the Community of Inquiry (CoI) in online classes at individual and group levels. Following the example of research on organizational climate, it assesses the strength of shared perceptions of teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence. The paper develops a theory of composition that relates isomorphic constructs of these presences at the individual and the class levels. Hypotheses are made about the agreement among students on the survey that is used to measure individual perceptions of the three presences of the CoI. These are tested through a set of statistics …