Examining Relationships Between Student Perceptions of Community of Inquiry as a Predictor of Cognitive and Behavioral Engagement Mediated by Self-Efficacy

Abstract

Online learning was growing in demand prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, due to the pandemic, more are seeing the need to increase the understanding of design strategies that improve student experiences. This study hypothesized a relationship between the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, representing the design strategies for learning effectiveness in online courses, and cognitive and behavioral engagement with student self-efficacy as a mediating variable between the constructs of CoI and cognitive engagement. Participants for this study were undergraduate students enrolled in an online course from universities all over the United States. The study used a hypothesized model and path analysis. While the model was a poor fit for the data, results of this study indicate a significant positive relationship between cognitive presence and cognitive engagement, cognitive presence and self-efficacy, teacher presence and behavioral engagement, and social presence and behavioral engagement. Results of this study suggest design strategies specifically related to the constructs in Community of Inquiry will have a positive impact on cognitive and behavioral engagement. However, it was found that self-efficacy did not play a mediating role between CoI and cognitive engagement.