Impact of learning styles on the community of inquiry presences in multi-disciplinary blended learning environments

ABSTRACT

In this research, a survey method utilising questionnaires and focus group interviews was employed to determine correlations between students’ learning styles and each of the presences in the CoI Framework across disciplines as well as students’ blended learning experience. To this end, the linear regression model was the statistical approach used to explore the correlation between each of the presences and the learning styles after controlling for the disciplines. Consequently, a three–way cross-tab using Chi-square statistics was the statistical method used to discover the variations of the students’ experience of blended learning under different disciplines and learning styles. A total of 12 lecturers and 377 students from three private institutions were involved in this study. The results show that among the four discipline categories, only the soft-applied has a significant effect on the linear regression model. In this particular discipline, the Kinesthetic variable alone has a significant effect on all the three presences in the CoI Framework. The R-squared values are rather small. Further investigation should be directed towards an inclusion of a larger number of postgraduate participants, more courses in the soft-pure and hard-pure categories, and the learning styles of lecturers.

KEYWORDS:

• Community of inquiry
• learning style
• multi-disciplinary environments
• blended learning
• student-centred teaching

Acknowledgement

My research interests are in the areas of student centred teaching and learning, in particular, design and implementation of instructional strategies, blended learning, and education technologies. I am also interested in the assessment for learning and assessment as learning.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Chan Chang-Tik’s research interests are in the areas of student-centred teaching and learning, in particular, design and implementation of instructional strategies, blended learning, and educational technologies. The author is also interested in the assessment for learning and assessment as learning.

ORCID

Chan Chang-Tik http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8675-7685

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social & Economics Transformation in Global Asia in the 21st Century (GA21), a campus funded multidisciplinary research platform of Monash University Malaysia [grant number EG-2-15].