Does the Community of Inquiry Framework Predict Outcomes in Online MBA Courses?

Abstract

[...]while the CoI framework has received extensive examination in qualitative studies (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2005; Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005; Heckman & Annabi, 2005; Oriogun, Ravenscroft, & Cook, 2005; Stodel, Thompson, & MacDonald, 2006), and individual components of the framework have been examined empirically (Arbaugh & Hwang, 2006; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Shea, Fredericksen, Pickett, & Pelz, 2003; Wise, Chang, Duffy, & del Valle, 2004), studies that empirically examine all components of the framework simultaneously are limited. Some of the activities comprising this category of teaching presence include re-creating Power Point presentations and lecture notes onto the course site, developing audio/video mini-lectures, providing personal insights into the course material, creating a desirable mix of and a schedule for individual and group activities, and providing guidelines on how to use the medium effectively.\n This role includes sharing meaning, identifying areas of agreement and disagreement, and seeking to reach consensus and understanding. [...]facilitating discourse requires the instructor to review and comment upon student comments, raise questions, and make observations to move discussions in a desired direction, keeping discussion moving efficiently, draw out inactive students, and limit the activity of dominating posters when they become detrimental to the learning of the group (Anderson et al., 2001; Brower, 2003; Coppola et al., 2002; Shea et al., 2003).

Introduction

In spite of the explosion of empirical research on online learning effectiveness over the last decade (Sitzmann, Kraiger, Stewart, & Wisher, 2006; Tallent-Runnels, Thomas, Lan, Cooper, Ahern, Shaw, & Liu, 2006), the emergence of a dominant theoretical framework that explains online learning effectiveness has yet to occur. While there are several potential emerging models of online business education (e.g., Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Leidner & Jarvenpaa, 1995; Rungtusanatham, Ellram, Siferd, & Salik, 2004; Sharda, Romano, Lucca, Weiser, Scheets, Chung, & Sleezer, 2004), one that has attracted the most attention is the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework developed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000). Google Scholar shows that Garrison and colleagues' initial article describing the framework has been cited in other works at least 260 times as of October 2007, making it by far the most cited article from the journal The Internet and Higher Education. However, while the CoI framework is gaining increasing attention among education scholars (Anagnostopoulos, Basmadjian, & McCrory, 2005; Arnold & Ducate, 2006; Meyer, 2004; Shea, 2006), studies that examine the framework's generalizability to online learning in other disciplines is somewhat limited. Also, while the CoI framework has received extensive examination in qualitative studies (Anagnostopoulos et al., 2005; Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005; Heckman & Annabi, 2005; Oriogun, Ravenscroft, & Cook, 2005; Stodel, Thompson, & MacDonald, 2006), and individual components of the framework have been examined empirically (Arbaugh & Hwang, 2006; Richardson & Swan, 2003; Shea, Fredericksen, Pickett, & Pelz, 2003; Wise, Chang, Duffy, & del Valle, 2004), studies that empirically examine all components of the framework simultaneously are limited. Because of this relative lack of empirical research, studies that examine the relationship between any of the framework's dimensions and learning outcomes are only now beginning to emerge (Shea, 2006; Shea, Li, & Pickett, 2006). Because of this relative lack of empirical research, presently there is little evidence available to consider whether there are significant relationships between any of the framework's dimensions and course outcomes (Ho & Swan, 2007). In fact, one of the framework's creators recently has suggested that this stream of research needs to move from early exploratory and descriptive studies toward rigorous empirical analysis (Garrison, 2007). Therefore, if the CoI framework is to gain legitimacy as a theory of online learning, we need more empirical studies to assess its explanatory power in fields beyond general education.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the results of a study that examines whether the CoI dimensions of social, teaching, and cognitive presence distinctively exist in management education e-learning environments, and whether and to what extent these dimensions are associated with perceived learning and delivery medium satisfaction in online MBA courses. By doing this, the paper provides initial insights into the empirical verification of the CoI framework and its potential for generalizability to online management education. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The first section of the paper describes the CoI framework and reviews recent studies on its three dimensions: social, cognitive, and teaching presence, and uses this literature to hypothesize relationships between these dimensions and student perceived learning and delivery medium satisfaction. The paper's second section presents the development of the research sample of MBA students in online courses over a two-year period at a Midwestern U.S. university and describes the survey items used to measure the CoI dimensions. Next, the results section of the paper describes an exploratory factor analysis of the CoI measures and a regression analysis used to test the study's hypotheses. Finally, the discussion section presents primary conclusions and contributions and potential implications of these findings for online management education instructors and researchers.

The Community of Inquiry Framework

Garrison and colleagues (2000) developed the CoI framework to investigate how features of written language used in computer conferencing activities promote critical/ higher-order thinking. They contend that higher-order learning experiences are best conducted as a community of inquiry composed of teachers and learners (Lipman, 1991) requiring both the engagement of "real" persons and the demonstration of critical thinking to be successful. Their framework posits that effective online learning is a function of the interaction of three elements: teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. The following section describes these three elements and develops hypotheses for each regarding their relationship to online course outcomes. Since it is the element that has been most recently conceptualized, teaching presence is discussed first and most extensively.

Teaching Presence

Garrison and colleagues (2000) contend that while interactions between participants are necessary in virtual learning environments, interactions by themselves are not sufficient to ensure effective online learning. These types of interactions need to have clearly defined parameters and be focused toward a specific direction, hence the need for teaching presence. They describe teaching presence as the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes. Anderson and colleagues (2001) conceptualized teaching presence as having three components: 1) instructional design and organization; 2) facilitating discourse (originally called "building understanding"), and 3) direct instruction. While recent empirical research may generate a debate regarding whether teaching presence has two (Shea, 2006) or three (Arbaugh & Hwang, 2006) components, the general conceptualization of this CoI element has been supported by subsequent research (Coppola, Hiltz, & Rotter, 2002; LaPointe & Gunawardena, 2004; Stein, Wanstreet, Calvin, Overtoom, & Wheaton, 2005).

Course Design and Organization

Anderson and colleagues (2001) describe the design and organization aspect of teaching presence as the planning and design of the structure, process, interaction and evaluation aspects of the online course. Some of the activities comprising this category of teaching presence include re-creating Power Point presentations and lecture notes onto the course site, developing audio/video mini-lectures, providing personal insights into the course material, creating a desirable mix of and a schedule for individual and group activities, and providing guidelines on how to use the medium effectively. These are particularly important activities since clear and consistent course structure supporting engaged instructors and dynamic discussions have been found to be the most consistent predictors of successful online courses (Swan, 2002; 2003). Of the three components of teaching presence, this is the one most likely to be performed exclusively by the instructor. These activities are for the most part completed prior to the beginning of the course, but adjustments can be made as the course progresses (Anderson et al., 2001).

Facilitating Discourse

Anderson and colleagues (2001) conceptualize facilitating discourse as the means by which students are engaged in interacting about and building upon the information provided in the course instructional materials. This component of teaching presence is consistent with findings supporting the importance of participant interaction in online learning effectiveness in general and in management education in particular (Arbaugh, 2005b; Benbunan-Fich & Arbaugh, 2006; Sherry, Fulford, & Zhang, 1998). This role includes sharing meaning, identifying areas of agreement and disagreement, and seeking to reach consensus and understanding. Therefore, facilitating discourse requires the instructor to review and comment upon student comments, raise questions, and make observations to move discussions in a desired direction, keeping discussion moving efficiently, draw out inactive students, and limit the activity of dominating posters when they become detrimental to the learning of the group (Anderson et al., 2001; Brower, 2003; Coppola et al., 2002; Shea et al., 2003).

Direct Instruction

Anderson and colleagues (2001) contextualized direct instruction as the instructor provision of intellectual and scholarly leadership in part through the sharing of their subject matter knowledge with the students. They also contend that a subject matter expert and not merely a facilitator must play this role because of the need to diagnose comments for accurate understanding, injecting sources of information, and directing discussions in useful directions, scaffolding learner knowledge to raise it to a new level.

In addition to the sharing of knowledge by a content expert, direct instruction is concerned with indicators that assess the discourse and the efficacy of the educational process. Instructor responsibilities are to facilitate reflection and discourse by presenting content, using various means of assessment and feedback. Explanatory feedback is crucial. This type of communication must be perceived to have a high level of social presence/ instructor immediacy (Baker, 2004; Gorham, 1988; Richardson & Swan, 2003) to be effective. Instructors must have both content and pedagogical expertise to make links among contributed ideas, diagnose misperceptions, and inject knowledge from textbooks, articles, and Web-based materials.

The simultaneous roles of discussion facilitator and content expert within teaching presence goes beyond early contentions that online instructors needed merely to transition from a role of knowledge disseminator to interaction facilitator. Teaching presence contends that for online learning to be effective, instructors must play both roles (Arbaugh & Hwang, 2006). Considering that recent research in online management education suggests that extensive instructor engagement is necessary for positive learning outcomes (Eom, Wen, & Ashill, 2006; Marks, Sibley, & Arbaugh, 2005), it is reasonable to predict that teaching presence would influence learning in online MBA courses. Also, teaching presence's emphasis on design and organization should positively influence student satisfaction with the Internet as a delivery medium. If there is no set of activities, no timeline, no protocol, no format for course materials and no evaluation criteria, chaos will ensue in the online environment (Berger, 1999; Hiltz & Wellman, 1997). Design and organization provide the context for which discourse and direct instruction have meaning. The results of recent online management education research that shows a strong relationship between course design and structural characteristics and delivery medium satisfaction (Arbaugh & Rau, 2007; Eom et al., 2006) suggest the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a: Teaching presence will be positively associated with student perceived learning in web-based MBA courses.

Hypothesis 1b: Teaching presence will be positively associated with student satisfaction with the delivery medium for web-based MBA courses.