Investigating relationships between community of inquiry perceptions and attitudes towards reading circles in Chinese blended EFL learning

• Published in: International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education Vol. 21; no. 1; pp. 6 - 25
• Main Authors: Teng, Yilian, Yin, Zhuhui, Wang, Xia, Yang, Hanyu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.12.2024; Springer Nature B.V; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Attitudes towards reading circles; Blended EFL learning; Blended learning; Chinese languages; Cognition; CoI perceptions; Computer Appl. in Social and Behavioral Sciences; Computer Science; Computers and Education; Educational Technology; English (Second Language); English as a second language; English as a second language instruction; Foreign languages; Higher Education; Humanities; Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet); Law; Perceptions; Reading; Regression analysis; Research Article; Second Language Learning; Statistical Analysis; Statistics for Social Sciences; Student attitudes; Blended EFL learning; CoI perceptions; Attitudes towards reading circles
• ISSN: 2365-9440; 2365-9440
• DOI: 10.1186/s41239-024-00440-x

Little research has been conducted to investigate relationships between students’ community of inquiry (CoI) perceptions and their attitudes towards reading circles (ARC). To bridge the gap this quantitative research reports a cohort of Chinese students’ perceptions of CoI and its prediction for their attitudes towards reading circles (RC) in English as a Foreign Language learning. The researchers administered and collected 202 valid questionnaires. They analyzed the correlations between CoI and ARC dimensions, did regression analyses and came up with insightful findings. It’s found that, concerning CoI, students have more positive perceptions of teaching and cognitive presences than of social presence. Meanwhile teaching presence, cognitive presence, social presence of CoI and usefulness, affect, and behavior of ARC are closely correlated. CoI teaching presence and cognitive presence are significant predictors for usefulness and behavior of ARC, while the combination of the three CoI presences predicts affect of ARC. Investigating the relationships between a longstanding CoI framework and a fledging ARC scale provides great implications for Chinese blended EFL teaching, especially in reading courses.