Learning EFL Online During a Pandemic: Insights into The Quality of Emergency Online Education

Abstract

This study investigates English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' perceptions of the causal relationships among teaching, social, and cognitive presences, indicative of a community of inquiry in online EFL course. Their relationships to demographic variables are also explored. There has been a growing interest in using the community of inquiry framework to explore the existence of teaching, social, and cognitive presences as indicative of the quality of online educational experience. The causal relationships among the three presences and whether demographic variables such as gender and program of study predict these presences have not received considerable attention. To examine the relationships among the three presences, the Community of Inquiry (COI) survey instrument was administered to 737 learners of EFL. Factor analysis was performed, and the findings confirmed the factor structure of the COI. In addition, structural equation modelling and Chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID) analyses confirmed the hypothesized causal relationships among the three presences. Results revealed that teaching presence was the core factor in sustaining an online community of inquiry and gender significantly predicted perceptions of teaching presence. Implications for research on online language teaching, policy, and practice are discussed.