The mediating role of learner empowerment in the relationship between the community of inquiry and online learning outcomes
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on global education, leading to a distinct increase in online learning. While online learning offers potential benefits in terms of flexibility and accessibility, it also presents significant challenges for students, teachers, and institutions alike (Greenhow, Graham, and Koehler, 2022). To address these challenges, the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has been widely adopted as an effective means of creating engaging online learning environments and gaining insight into students' online learning experiences (Swan, Garrison, and Richardson, 2009). The CoI framework identifies three key elements that are essential for successful online learning: teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2010). Teaching presence refers to the active engagement of instructors in designing and facilitating online learning processes. Social presence highlights students' ability to establish and maintain personal relationships with their peers and instructors through communication. Finally, cognitive presence refers to the extent to which students construct knowledge through critical thinking, reflection, and collaborative inquiry (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000).
A considerable body of literature has examined the impact of the three presences on students' learning outcomes, but the findings are inconsistent. While numerous studies have demonstrated that the presences contribute to positive learning outcomes such as academic achievement (Rockinson-Szapkiw, Wendt, Whighting, and Nisbet, 2016), perceived knowledge gains (Arbaugh, 2008), and satisfaction (Akyol and Garrison, 2008), other studies have found no significant influence of the presences on students' learning outcomes (Lee and Huang, 2018; Maddrell, Morrison, and Watson, 2017). These mixed results have prompted research on the CoI framework to consider individual differences to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of the presences on students' online learning process (Huang, Law, and Lee, 2019; Lam, 2015; Shea et al., 2013). Furthermore, in a recent meta-analysis, Martin, Wu, Wan, and Xie (2022) identified a publication bias in the relationship between the CoI presences and students' actual learning outcomes. This suggests that studies with significant or positive results are more likely to be published in academic journals than studies with non-significant or negative results. The authors expressed concern that this bias potentially reduces the certainty of the effects of the CoI presences on students' learning and encouraged further research to investigate the impact of the presences on students' actual learning outcomes, such as academic achievement, course grades, cumulative GPA, and other relevant objective measures.
The present study aims to continue the exploration of the critical role of individual differences within the CoI framework. Specifically, this study investigates the relationship between CoI presences on students' learning outcomes by integrating learner empowerment as an essential learner characteristic and examines whether learner empowerment mediates such the relationship. To address the concerns raised by Martin et al. (2022), objective measures, including online engagement and final exam scores, are employed to assess students' actual learning outcomes in online courses. This study contributes to both the literature and teaching practice in several ways. Firstly, it offers valuable insights into the relationship between CoI presences, learner empowerment, and actual learning outcomes. Secondly, it demonstrates the mediating role of learner empowerment in the relationship between CoI and students' learning outcomes. Finally, the findings propose practical suggestions for designing online courses that can benefit the online learning community.
Section snippets
Community of Inquiry
The CoI framework, based on John Dewey's work on community and inquiry (Dewey, 1933), posits that “effective online learning, especially higher-order learning, requires the development of community” (Swan et al., 2009, pp. 4–5). The CoI framework is a process model that guides teachers in designing and delivering effective online learning and in engaging students in critical reflection and collaborative discussion (Garrison et al., 2000; Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2010). At its core, the
Participants
The study was conducted at a large public Chinese university with a primary focus on training K-12 teachers and predominantly offering teacher education programs. As is typical of this type of institution, female students are often disproportionally represented (Riegle-Crumb and Moore, 2014). The study was conducted in two mandatory undergraduate courses. All 211 students enrolled in the two courses voluntarily participated in the study, with the majority of being female (82%), and over 90% of
Confirmatory factorial analysis
CFA of the Chinese version of Learner Empowerment Instrument showed that five items did not have significant factor loadings, so it was removed from the model (see appendix A). The remaining learner empowerment items showed a good fit to a three-factor structure of meaningfulness, impact, and competence (x2/df = 2; CFI > 0.93; RMSEA = 0.07). Moreover, all factor loadings ranged from 0.50 to 0.77, which confirmed the convergent validity of the constructor of learner empowerment (see Fig. 6).
Structural equation modeling
We
Discussion
The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of CoI presences on students' actual learning outcomes by incorporating learner empowerment as an essential learner characteristic in two undergraduate courses that were abruptly shifted online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the CoI and learner empowerment literature, we proposed a conceptual model and hypothesized that CoI presences had direct effects on both learner empowerment and actual learning outcomes, and that learner
Limitations
While this study addresses important questions, it is not without its limitations. First of all, caution is warranted when generalizing study results to other populations, such as those with different subject areas, grade levels, genders, or ethnic groups due to possible sampling bias resulting from the study being conducted in a university with a primary focus on training K-12 teachers and predominantly offering teacher education programs. The overrepresentation of female participants may not
Conclusion
Implementing the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to foster deep and meaningful online learning is a complex endeavor. The study aimed to address the mixed findings and publication bias within the CoI literature by examining the impact of CoI presences on students' actual learning outcomes, with a particular focus on incorporating learner empowerment as an essential learner characteristic. The empirical findings of this study provide valuable insights into the significant mediating role of
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