A Community of Inquiry and Hispanic Student Intent to Persist in STEM

Abstract

The purpose of this quantitative, correlational-predictive study is to investigate if and to what extent Teaching, Social, and Cognitive Presence combined and individually in an online General Chemistry for Science Majors class predict Intent to Persist in STEM for Hispanic community college students in California. The sample size was 148 Hispanic participants who enrolled in an online General Chemistry Course for Science Majors between 2020-2022. The theoretical foundation for this study was the Community of Inquiry. The instrument used the Community of Inquiry Survey which measures Teaching Presence, Social Presence, Cognitive Presence, and the Intent to Persist in STEM survey which measured students’ Intent to Persist after enrolling in the online course. The instrument had a high level of reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of .93 for all presences, and .88 for Teaching Presence, .84 for Social Presence, and .86 for Cognitive Presence. Intent to Persist had a Cronbach’s alpha of .76. A multiple regression analysis was run to measure the predictive relationship between Teaching Presence, Social Presence, and Cognitive Presence combined and individually, and Intent to Persist. The three presences combined (F(3, 144) =116.46, p < .001) and Teaching Presence (ß = .8, p < .001) and Cognitive Presence (ß = .8, p < .001) alone predicted Intent to Persist rejecting the null hypothesis. Social Presence alone did not predict intention to persist (ß = 1.0, p = .111) so the null hypothesis could not be rejected. The results of this study contribute to the literature on a Community of Inquiry as an equity pedagogy model for underrepresented minority students in STEM.