Cross-cultural assessment of the community of inquiry instrument: a comparison between UK and US students

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a cross-cultural assessment of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) instrument [Arbaugh, J. B., Cleveland-Innes, M., Diaz, S. R., Garrison, D. R., Ice, P., Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. P. (2008). Developing a community of inquiry instrument: Testing a measure of the community of inquiry framework using a multi-institutional sample. The Internet and Higher Education, 11(3-4), 133–136], comparing its application between students in the UK and the US. Using data collected from 245 UK accounting students, exploratory factor analysis was performed to assess the factorial structure of the CoI instrument. The analysis identifies three factors, consistent with the three presences outlined in the CoI framework [Garrison, D. R., & Archer, W. (2000). A transactional perspective on teaching and learning: A framework for adult and higher education. Elsevier Science]. However, five items display inadequate factor loadings below 0.5. In a cross-cultural comparison with [Arbaugh, J. B., Cleveland-Innes, M., Diaz, S. R., Garrison, D. R., Ice, P., Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. P. (2008). Developing a community of inquiry instrument: Testing a measure of the community of inquiry framework using a multi-institutional sample. The Internet and Higher Education, 11(3-4), 133–136] US study, distinct differences emerge. Notably, UK students exhibit higher mean scores for teaching, social, and cognitive presences compared to their US counterparts. In conclusion, it appears that cultures with high long-term orientation and low uncertainty avoidance could be more conducive to active engagement in the learning process and critical thinking, thus leading to high student perceptions of CoI.