Community of Inquiry and Its Application for Distance Education

Abstract

Community of Inquiry (COI) is one of the well-defined and described theoretical models of learning in distance education (DE). A lot of research testing the model has been carried out and there is an on-going updating of the model whereby scholars from diverse DE continue to interact continuously about its various dimensions. In this article, the model is described just to update those who do not know what it is all about and some practical ways in which it is applied are demonstrated. Technology has richly transformed the way DE is conceptualised as now there is more interactions and closing of various distances particularly when learning adopts communities of practice. This conceptual paper concludes that COI has greatly enhanced DE by enabling better student retention, better designs of learning materials and higher forms of cognitive, social and teacher presences. COI has also enhanced strategies for designing eLearning.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2015.v5n1p123