Peter Shea

Using the U.S. Beginning Postsecondary Students survey (BPS 04/09), the study tests whether early enrollment in online courses harms credential attainment for community‑college students. Controlling for background characteristics, students who took some early online coursework were more likely to earn a credential than peers taking only classroom courses, challenging assumptions that online learning necessarily impedes completion.

Combines quantitative content analysis with social network analysis in a graduate blended course to detect forms of learning presence (forethought, monitoring, adaptation, reflection). Students demonstrating stronger self‑ and co‑regulation occupied more central network positions and produced higher‑quality knowledge artifacts, reinforcing the theoretical and practical value of learning presence.

Summarizes three national surveys of district/high‑school leaders conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group. Reviews the scale, forms (fully online, blended, supplemental), and purposes of K–12 online learning and discusses implications for policy and high‑school reform, situating K–12 developments in the broader trajectory of online education.

Investigates whether learning presence (online self‑regulation) moderates relationships among teaching, social, and cognitive presence. Findings suggest that learning presence strengthens the predictive links between presences and outcomes, indicating that students’ regulation skills are key to realizing the benefits of well‑designed online environments.

Extends prior work on learning presence by analyzing online discourse and course artifacts to detect self‑, co‑, and socially‑shared regulation in online courses. Evidence shows learning presence emerges more strongly in complex, collaborative activities and correlates with course performance, supporting its inclusion as an element of the CoI framework.

Links inputs (teaching/social/cognitive presence) to outputs (quality of student work) by coding online discussions with CoI and evaluating case‑study artifacts using the SOLO taxonomy. Teaching and cognitive presence, together with SOLO scores, account for substantial variance in instructor‑assigned grades, illustrating a process‑product approach to evaluating online learning.

Critiques common research practices that count only discussion‑forum activity as instruction. By mapping teaching‑presence behaviors across whole courses, the study shows that substantial instructor work occurs outside threaded discussions (design, feedback, assessment), and argues for broader measures to represent online instructional effort.

Analyzes two fully online courses using quantitative content analysis and social network analysis to explore relationships among teaching, social, and cognitive presence. Results reveal complex interactions between instructor and student presences and patterns of participation associated with higher‑order inquiry, offering methodological and practical insights for advancing CoI research and practice.

Proposes and tests an extension to the Community of Inquiry framework by foregrounding students’ active roles as self‑regulated learners. Using survey data from 3,165 students in online and hybrid courses across 42 institutions, the study links learner self‑efficacy and regulation to perceived quality of learning and to teaching and social presence. The authors introduce “learning presence” to capture cognitive, motivational, and behavioral processes that support self‑regulation in technology‑mediated settings and argue that incorporating this element strengthens CoI’s explanatory power for online/blended learning.

Validates a survey instrument for teaching, social, and cognitive presence with 2,159 online learners and uses structural equation modeling to show that teaching and social presence explain a large portion of variance in cognitive presence, a proxy for meaningful learning. Results underscore the importance of instructor orchestration and social climate in promoting higher‑order inquiry online.

Discusses theoretical assumptions behind learner‑centered online pedagogy and reports a study of 2,314 students across 32 campuses. Perceptions of directed facilitation and clear design/organization by instructors predict stronger feelings of shared purpose, trust, connectedness, and learning—core attributes of learning community.

Examines whether online instructors’ teaching presence predicts students’ sense of learning community. In a multi‑institutional sample (n=1,067; 32 colleges), validated scales showed that instructional design/organization and directed facilitation are strongly associated with students’ connectedness and perceived learning. Demographic factors (e.g., age, gender) did not meaningfully alter these relationships. Implications include designing for clarity, facilitation, and feedback to cultivate robust online communities.

Presents a multi‑institutional study (n=2,036) linking teaching‑presence behaviors to students’ sense of online learning community. Effective instructional design/organization and directed facilitation by instructors are significant predictors of connectedness and perceived learning, supporting design strategies that foreground presence to build community.

Extends earlier SUNY Learning Network research by surveying over 6,000 enrollments. High levels of instructional design/organization, facilitation, and direct instruction correlate with greater student satisfaction and reported learning, highlighting faculty development and course design practices that enhance teaching presence.