COVID-19 Crisis: Exploring Community of Inquiry in Online Learning for Sub-Degree Students

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a tremendous impact on the pedagogy and learning experience of students in sub-degree education sector of Hong Kong. Online learning has become the “sole” solution to deal with student learning challenges during this chaotic period. In this study, we explore online learning for sub-degree students by using a community of inquiry (CoI). As such, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on survey data gathered from 287 sub-degree students from the business and engineering disciplines. Results indicated that the network speed for online education determines the perceived cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence of students, whereas gender and academic disciplines of students are not moderating factors that create a significant difference in perceived cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence of students. Our study findings for creating and sustaining a purposeful online learning community are highlighted.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Sustainable impact of COVID-19 on education projects: aspects of naturalism

“…The coronavirus disease has reverted human beings to their primitive civilization, leaning them towards the origin and their religious convictions. It has closed all luxury centers around the globe, theatres, nightclubs, dance halls, and taverns (Chau et al 2021 ; Lau et al 2021 ; Liu et al 2021 ; Iqbal et al 2021b ; Yu et al 2022 ). The interest rates in all countries have been reduced to save the economies.…”

“…It is amazing to notice that people from across borders were stranded far away from their homelands and were unable to reach their destinations. It changed policy orientation at the international level dynamically (Lau et al 2021 ; Huang et al 2022 ). Italy was not accepting migrants from underdeveloped countries like Somalia, due to different reasons, but now they are seeking protection land for their people.…”

“…However, besides all its devastating effects, it has also provoked positivity in human emotions, attitudes, and considerations (Usman et al 2021a ). Recently, many studies have been conducted to investigate different aspects of pandemics, especially COVID-19, and its effects from the biological and industrial perspectives (Xie and Zhu 2020 ; Konstantinoudis et al 2021 ; Lau et al 2021 ; Navani et al 2021 ; Travaglio et al 2021 ; Yuan et al 2021 ).…”

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Assessing the role of energy finance, green policies, and investment towards green economic recovery

“…In this study, the researcher reveals that without rich household different characteristics, the cascading effects for direct cash handovers are more than those for indirect ones. Importantly, this analysis changes without exogenous shocks occasioned by the pandemic, implying that the applied model shows an important degree of country dependence (Chau et al 2021b ; Lau et al 2021 ; Liu et al 2021 ; Iqbal et al 2021d ). This is in line with the vast amount of employment multiplier the study finds for liquidity assistance policies (Iqbal et al 2021c ).…”

Association between psychological distress and coping strategies among students engaged in online learning

“…However, in today's technological era, innovative online learning is no longer a pipe dream but rather one of the standard modalities of higher education [21]. A study exploring online learning experiences for sub-degree students in Hong Kong displayed that network speed plays a crucial role in strengthening students' potential for in-depth and purposeful learning [22]. Students with self-directed learning skills, technology readiness, and motivation, on the other hand, can more readily attain critical online learning skills [23].…”