Differences in Community of Inquiry and Perceived Learning in Malaysian Blended Learning Environments

Colleges and universities that offer blended learning continue to increase in number. The study determined the difference in perceived learning, social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence as well as their indicators among three different blended learning environments in Malaysian higher education institutions. The study also identified moderation effects of gender on the relationship between the CoI and perceived learning in blended learning environments in Malaysian higher education institutions.

The data were collected from three public universities in peninsular Malaysia and the respondents were undergraduate students from theses universities. The items of the questionnaire were chosen and adapted from previous studies. Validity and reliability of the instrument were tested in a pilot study and assumptions of one way ANOVA, one way MANOVA and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were checked before analyzing the data.

The result shows that the students' presence in classroom meetings contributes their learning. The results also indicate that high levels of perceived learning were reported by undergraduate student in the blended learning environment face to face meeting rather than online sessions.

Moreover, The results of this analysis indicated that there were no statistically significant difference among UPM, UKM and IIUM undergraduate students’ perception of social presence (affective expression, open communication, and group cohesion); cognitive presence (triggering event, exploration, integration and resolution) and teaching presence (design and organization, facilitating discourse and direct instruction) in the blended learning environments.

Furthermore, the results showed that there are positive relationship among social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence and their indicators based on the perception of undergraduate students in blended learning environments. Finally, the results showed that the gender does not moderate the relationship between the CoI and perceived learning in undergraduate blended learning environments.

Overall, this study provides a good explanation for the role learner in blended learning environment. Since, the CoI framework is missed the role of learner in the blended learning environments; the current study came to fill up this gap with focusing on learner in this learning environment. Moreover, the findings of the study can help university policy makers, leaders, and administrators to plan strategies, develop blended learning environments in terms of the CoI.