Evaluation of the Community of Inquiry Instrument: Synthesis of Psychometric Properties

• In Event: Investigating Ways of Evaluating, Measuring, Predicting, and Profiling Online Attitudes and Behaviors

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate psychometric properties of the Community of Inquiry survey by synthesizing reported results of psychometric evaluation on the instrument with different samples. Our findings illustrated that (a) all teaching, social, and cognitive subscales showed a high weighted average internal consistency (b) there was a large variation in reliabilities for each subscale indicating reliability of the subscales are unstable, and (c) each item was significant loading on its corresponding factor (β > 0.3). However, the pooled item loading values of cognitive presence were negative. Moderator analysis concluded that sample mean and standard deviation were significant moderators of teaching presence whereas there were no significant moderators for other two subscales. Implications and directions for future research were discussed.

Authors

• Jing Lv, East China Normal University

• Secil Caskurlu, Florida State University

• Yukiko Maeda, Purdue University

• Jennifer C. Richardson, Purdue University