Facilitators’ teaching and social presence in online asynchronous interprofessional education discussion

ABSTRACT

Asynchronous discussion boards have been increasingly used to engage teams of interprofessional learners in interactive and reflective discourse. Facilitation of this interprofessional discourse is critical, yet largely unexplored. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework provides a lens through which facilitators’ contributions on asynchronous discussion boards can be explored. The aim of this study was to apply the CoI framework teaching and social presence indicators to an online asynchronous IPE facilitation environment to determine if they comprehensively describe the kind of contributions made by IPE facilitators in two types of interprofessional team discussions. Directed content analysis based on the teaching and social presence indicators from the CoI framework was used to analyse seven facilitators’ contributions to four asynchronous team discussion points (two key dimensions and two case study discussions). Sixteen of the 31 teaching and social presence indicators, along with a new indicator (feedback on assessment tasks), comprehensively described the facilitators’ contributions. Many of the teaching presence indicators were used in a greater proportion of the key dimension discussions than in the case study discussions. This study demonstrates that the teaching and social presence indicators of the CoI framework are a valuable way to describe the contributions made by facilitators to asynchronous interprofessional team discussions.

KEYWORDS:

• Facilitation
• community of inquiry framework
• online
• asynchronous
• interprofessional education
• teaching presence
• social presence

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the late Professor Scott Reeves for his contributions in the conceptualisation of this study, along with his advice on study design, data coding and analysis.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received for this study.

Notes on contributors

Sherryn Evans

Sherryn Evans is a Senior Lecturer and the Interprofessional Education Coordinator in the Faculty of Health at Deakin University. Sherryn has fifteen years experience in higher education, with expertise in online teaching.

Tess Knight

Professor Tess Knight, PhD, is the Head of School of Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy and the Cairnmillar Institute. Tess has over 25 years experience in higher education with expertise in classic and innovative qualitative research methods.

Arlene Walker

Arlene Walker, PhD, is a registered psychologist, Associate Head of School (Regional and Rural Development) and a Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Deakin University. Arlene has expertise in graduate work readiness and employee health and wellbeing. ching and Learning in the School of Psychology.

Wendy Sutherland-Smith

Associate Professor Wendy Sutherland-Smith is the Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Psychology at Deakin University. Wendy has over 20 years experience in higher education primarily in the areas of curriculum design, assessment and online learning.