Abstract:

In this study, the influence of the community of inquiry (CoI) presences on learner satisfaction levels of students attending an online graduate course at a private university in Istanbul, Turkey was analyzed. Forty-eight students who are taking a master's degree course participated in the study. The purpose of the study was to analyze the relationship between CoI online presences -which are categorized as teaching, social, and cognitive presences- and learner satisfaction. In order to analyze the data, correlation analysis, and descriptive statistics were conducted. Thematic qualitative analysis was also employed to analyze the answers to two open-ended questions in the survey. Forty-eight graduate students (26 female and 22 male) participated during the 14-week semester of Fall 2020. The findings of the study show that presences have a statistically significant impact on learner satisfaction. When they are compared, teaching presence has the most important role in learner satisfaction and performance in a learning environment during the pandemic. Accordingly, findings suggest implications for creating online collaborative courses. They also indicate that teachers’ positive attitude towards the course and participants and up-to-date course content might increase learner satisfaction.

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