Preliminary Study on e-Collaboration Readiness and Community of Inquiry Presences in a Higher Educational Institution

Abstract

The current nature of large class size in Higher Educational Institutions (HEI), the recent COVID-19 pandemics, and more importantly, because lecturer-student’s relationships mostly terminate right after the class session have made educators faced many new challenges. Based on these, educators have found it imperative to change the pedagogical and didactical approaches to teaching by integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into the classroom. e-Collaboration is one of the pedagogical approaches that enable two or more people to work together using technology to help achieve a goal. This study has introduced students to e-collaboration platforms via Learning Management System (LMS) and Piazza. The present research focuses on finding out the experience and readiness of the e-collaboration in a HEI. Both qualitative and quantitative approach were employed in the study. Results indicated that majority of participants in the study have positive attitude towards e-collaboration, their attitude results are significantly varied with their gender, and there are positive correlations among the Community of Inquiry (CoI) constructs at r = 0.75, n = 75, p = 0. In addition, majority of participants would like to use e-collaboration in future at M = 3.95. Thus, both male and female have positive attitudes towards e-collaboration at M3.82 SD = 0.74. The research brings to light the usefulness and the possibilities of e-collaboration for effective teaching and learning in HEI.