Can learning presence be the fourth community of inquiry presence? Examining the extended community of inquiry framework in blended learning using confirmatory factor analysis

Researchers continue to extend the community of inquiry (COI) framework, highlighting its utility in online and blended learning environments for providing a successful learning experience. Recent studies have added the learning presence dimension to the classic COI framework which contains teaching, social, and cognitive presences, to represent online students’ traits of self-regulation. However, there is a need to examine whether this additional presence structurally represents relationships with other COI presences. Attempting to fill this gap, this study examines the statistical structure of the extended COI framework (integrating the classic COI presences with the additional learning presence) as well as the structural path between the four presences, using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Data were collected from 205 undergraduate students who were enrolled in blended courses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study findings revealed that learning presence has strong correlations with the classic COI counterparts, especially cognitive presence. Furthermore, learning presence has significant positive relationships with cognitive presence and social presence. Overall, the validity and reliability of the extended COI framework (which integrates the classic COI presences with the additional learning presence) had been proven in this study. This study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive framework of the extended COI framework, proving their multi-dimensionality and inter-relationality.