Pre-service teachers’ perceptions related to the distance teacher education learning environment and community of inquiry

Abstract

This study aimed to reveal pre-service teachers' perceptions of Distance Education Learning Environment and Community of Inquiry according to gender and their departments and also clarify the relationship among these two sets. The research was designed according to relational survey research and cross-sectional data were collected from 262 volunteer pre-service teachers. In this study, the Distance Education Learning Environment Survey (DELES) and the Community of Inquiry (CoI) Inventory were implemented to collect data. In order to investigate whether there were differences among the perceptions of pre-service teachers according to the sub-dimensions of their DELES and CoI variables, multivariate analysis of variance was conducted. In addition, Canonical Correlation was performed to investigate the relationship between the DELES and CoI variable sets in a teacher training institution. The results revealed that female pre-service teachers exhibited considerably greater teaching presence and cognitive presence scores than males. However, no significant differences were determined in pre-service teachers' perceptions of distance teacher education learning environments and the CoI according to their departments. Based on the results, teaching presence was found a core factor and the perceived social and cognitive presence was related to mild instructor support, relevant instruction, authentic, active learning, student interaction and collaboration, and autonomy properties of distance education teacher training classroom environments.

Keywords

• community of inquiry
• distance education learning environment
• pre-service teachers
• teacher training environment