Student and teacher perceptions of community of inquiry in hybrid virtual classrooms

The COVID-19 period forced (higher) educational institutions to come up with new ways to offer courses. This study focuses on hybrid virtual classrooms, which are learning environments that provide learning activities, guided by a teacher, to both online and onsite students simultaneously. Part-time students evaluated, based on their experiences, how hybrid virtual classrooms stimulated their feeling of being part of a community of inquiry [CoI]. They related this to the three aspects of CoI: social, teaching, and cognitive presence. Additionally, teachers' perceptions on how they enhanced the three aspects were collected. A mixed-method approach was applied in which a validated self-report questionnaire to measure the experienced CoI feeling of students was used. Qualitative data were collected through interviewing teachers about their experiences. The results illustrate that students value hybrid virtual classrooms. Students expressed that social presence can be further enhanced, especially by improving communication tools. Teachers applied various strategies to enhance social presence but felt limited by the communication tools. This also affected their opportunities to stimulate student interaction. Students felt more motivated to engage in deeper learning and felt supported by teachers in their learning process. In conclusion, students and teachers both value hybrid virtual classrooms, but enhancing social presence is challenging. To overcome this, teachers require a better understanding of meaningful learning activities to stimulate interaction between online and onsite students.