The impact of community of inquiry and self-efficacy on student attitudes in sustained remote health professions learning environments

Abstract

Background Sustained remote learning environments, like those experienced in late 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, share characteristics with online courses but were not intentionally designed to delivered virtually. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of Community of Inquiry, a widely used online learning environment framework, and self-efficacy on perceived student attitudes within sustained remote learning environments. Methods An interinstitutional team of health professions education researchers collected survey data from 205 students representing a wide range of health professions in five U.S. institutions. Latent mediation models under structural equation modeling framework were used to examine whether student self-efficacy mediates the relationship between Community of Inquiry presence and student’s favorability of sustained remote learning delivered in the prolonged stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Higher levels of teaching presence and social presence in the remote learning environment were associated with higher levels of remote learning self-efficacy which, in turn, predicts variance in positive attitudes toward remote learning. When mediated by self-efficacy, significant variance in student’s favorability of sustained remote learning was explained by teaching presence (61%), social presence (64%), and cognitive presence (88%) and self-efficacy. Significant direct and indirect effects for teaching and social presence, and only direct effects for cognitive presence were observed. Conclusions This study establishes the Community of Inquiry and its three presence types as a relevant and stable framework for investigating sustained remote health professions teaching and learning environments, not only carefully designed online learning environments. Faculty may focus course design strategies which enhance presence and increase student self-efficacy for the sustained remote learning environment.

Facilitators and barriers to online group work in higher education within health sciences – a scoping review

“…Originally developed focusing on asynchronous online learning [ 18 ], the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework has since been applied to various online learning modes, including synchronous and blended [ 19 ]. It has been widely used to describe, implement and evaluate collaborative online learning [ 18–22 ] in research covering students’ learning experiences [ 22 ], attitudes [ 23 ] and perceived and actual learning [ 24 ]. Founded on Dewey’s educational philosophy and social constructivism, the framework is described as a collaborative constructivist model of learning and education (20, chpt.…”

Validation of the Italian Version of the Community of Inquiry Survey

“…Given the unique demands of this context, a preliminary assessment becomes essential. In this regard, TP emerges as the dimension with the highest predictive factor, as it shapes the future cognitive load [48][49][50]. However, it is crucial to recognize that instructors should anticipate synergies between SP and CP and, accordingly, structure the learning environment with suitable social affordances [51,52].…”