Examining reliability and validity of the Community of Inquiry Survey (COI)

Abstract

. Community of Inquiry is a theoretical framework with great influence in the investigation of online learning in higher Education. This study examines the reliability and validity of a neutral Spanish version of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Survey (v14) for online learning. The sample is composed of Spanish and Latin-American online university students. The results revealed a high reliability for the instrument (Conbrach’s α = .978) and the different presences (Conbrach’s α = .956 and higher). Three factor-structures of the CoI framework explained 71% of the variance in the pattern of relationships among the items using the first split-half sample. Confirmatory factor Analysis (CfA) demonstrates a good fit to the data from the sample to the sub-scales «Teaching presence» and «Cognitive presence» but an adequate fit was not found for the sub-scale Social presence. It is suggested that some of the items of the instrument be revised to improve its construct validity.