Undergraduate EFL Students’ Blended Communities of Inquiry Learning Experience

Abstract

Despite the theoretical alignment between the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework and blended EFL pedagogy, empirical research on how Chinese undergraduate EFL learners’ perceptions of teaching presence (TP), social presence (SP), cognitive presence (CP), and their specific subdimensions evolve within such contexts remains notably limited. To address this gap, the present study adopted a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, beginning with a 6-week pilot phase to validate the cultural adaptability and reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Community of Inquiry Survey, while also testing the operability of the blended CoI (BCoI) intervention process. Following necessary adjustments to instruments and procedures based on pilot results, an 11-week BCoI intervention was implemented, involving 37 Chinese first-year STEM undergraduate EFL learners. Data were collected using the validated Chinese CoI Survey and analyzed through Wilcoxon paired-tests, with effect sizes calculated using Cohen's r. Results revealed significant medium-to-large improvements across all primary dimensions: TP (r = 0.49), SP (r = 0.56), and CP (r = 0.65). Among subdimensions, the most prominent effects were observed in TP’s Design & Organization (r = 0.50), SP’s Group Cohesion (r = 0.53), and CP’s Triggering Events (r = 0.68), with all CP subdimensions demonstrating large effect sizes. These findings indicate that the BCoI approach holds potential for enhancing students’ presence perceptions in EFL blended learning contexts, though the study is limited by the absence of a control group and a relatively small sample size.