Alignment Between Instructors’ Intentions and Students’ Perceptions in Online Kinesiology Courses

According to the Community of Inquiry (COI) model, the online learning experience is enhanced when the course instructors address three key components throughout their teaching: teaching presence (TP), cognitive presence (CP), and social presence (SP). The TP represents the instructor`s role in the course design, facilitation, and integration of the cognitive and social aspects within the specific learning environment. The CP reflects the extent to which students construct and confirm meaning through systematic reflection and discourse that focuses on students` development of critical and higher-order thinking. The third key component, SP, represents the development of positive and supportive social interactions among students within a specific learning group while maintaining a productive social climate. Considering the COI framework, the current study investigated the following questions: (a) What are instructors’ intentions? (b) What are students’ perceptions?, and (c) What is the alignment between the instructor’s intentions and students’ perceptions? Four instructors teaching different Kinesiology online courses and 44 students completed the COI surveys. Results indicated that TP received the highest score among instructors (M = 4.05, SD = 0.32) and students (M = 4.01, SD = 0.65) whereas SP was the lowest among instructors (M = 2.64, SD = 0.69) and students (M = 3.60, SD = 0.59). Results also identified two courses with weaker alignments than other courses. A discussion regarding the social presence misalignment between instructors and students concludes the study. Results of this study support earlier studies (Gilbert & Moore, 1989; Moore, 1989) emphasizing the importance of social presence as a key component supporting the cognitive and motivational aspects within higher education settings. A recommendation was made for instructors to remember that the social connection among students is not embedded in their online course (as it would be in the face-to-face courses) and that they should reconsider the value of the social presence component for the learning process in online settings.