Introduction

The community of inquiry framework was developed by Garrison et al. (1999) to help educators in understanding how to build successful online and blended learning communities. It describes the technology-mediated learning environment that supports critical thinking, inquiry, and discourse between course participants (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007; Garrison et al., 1999). The community of inquiry perspective suggests that online and blended learning participants must focus on creating social and knowledge processes through their interactions and negotiations, which typically occur in face-to-face classrooms (Garrison et al., 1999; Wertz, 2022). As the community of inquiry framework reflects socio-constructivism, reflective thinking, and inquiry practices, it is considered a robust framework for learning design and inquiry (Cherney et al., 2017; Tolu, 2013). Thus, it is widely validated and accepted in the literature (Cleveland-Innes, 2019; Stenbom, 2018; Wertz, 2022).

Garrison et al.s' (1999) community of inquiry framework is a framework for engagement and communication that targets attaining deep and meaningful learning through the intersections among teaching, social, and cognitive presences. Teaching presence illustrates students’ interaction with instructional learning aspects included in the given learning activities (Garrison et al., 1999). Social presence describes students’ interactions with course participants, while cognitive presence describes their interaction with the course content (Garrison et al., 1999). These presences work together to enhance the quality of students’ learning experiences and outcomes (Garrison, 2016; Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).

Many researchers suggested adding learning presence as a fourth presence to extend the community of inquiry framework (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010, 2012; Shea et al., 2012; Wertz, 2014, 2022), arguing that the original framework does not give enough attention to the role of students’ self-regulation in online and blended learning environments (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010; Shea et al., 2012). Students in such learning environments are more independent and devote more effort to managing their time, dividing up the given tasks, setting goals, and persisting to complete these learning tasks (Pool et al., 2017; Shea & Bidjerano, 2010; Shea et al., 2012). Consequently, they direct their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours to manage their learning process and achieve their desired outcomes (Cho & Heron, 2015; Zimmerman, 2002; Zimmerman & Schunk, 2011). Garrison and Akyol (2015) articulated that students’ shared metacognition has an important contribution to the community of inquiry framework, arguing that critical thinking, which concentrates on students’ construction of meaning and shared understanding, is the core of this framework. Learning is constructed by the student and the social context of the community of inquiry (Wertz, 2022). Therefore, shared metacognition is strongly related to self-regulation, which is driven by the intersection between teaching and cognitive practices (Garrison, 2022; Garrison & Akyol, 2015). Metacognition is an essential intellectual skill that makes a major contribution to student learning (Garrison, 2022). Hence, learning presence provides a better understanding of students’ roles in the interactive learning environment where they self-regulate, co-regulate, and socially share the regulation of learning (Shea et al., 2022).

These arguments emphasise the importance of including learning presence in the community of inquiry framework to reflect students’ involvement in online and blended collaborative learning environments (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010; Shea et al., 2012, 2022). According to the conceptualisation of self-regulation, the additional learning presence reflects motivational, behavioural, and intellectual developmental traits of self-regulation that are not considered in the original community of inquiry framework (Hayes et al., 2015; Shea & Bidjerano, 2010; Shea et al., 2012, 2014, 2022; Wertz, 2014, 2022). In addition, Shea and Bidjerano (2010) suggested that self-regulation is an important mediator that links the extended community of inquiry’s components.

Although these attempts to develop, extend, and gain more understanding of the community of inquiry framework are growing, there is a need for statistical proof regarding the structural relationships between the additional learning presence and the original community of inquiry presences (Kozan & Caskurlu, 2018; Wertz, 2022). In addition, little investigation was made to examine the contribution of these presences to enhancing students’ learning experiences and attaining learning outcomes (Lee et al., 2021; Maddrell et al., 2017; Zhang & Lin, 2021). Determining the impact of each presence on students’ learning experiences can provide complete insight (Lee et al., 2021). Thus, this study examines the structural relationships among the extended community of inquiry components (namely, teaching, social, learning, and cognitive presences) and investigates their impact on students’ learning perceptions in the blended learning environment, considering the mediation roles of social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence.

Literature review and hypotheses development

Community of inquiry components

The original Garrison et al.s' (1999) community of inquiry framework comprised three overlapping presences: teaching, social, and cognitive. Teaching presence describes designing and organising the course content, facilitating discourse, and directing students’ cognitive and social processes to obtain meaningful learning outcomes (Anderson et al., 2001). Accordingly, instructional design and organisation, discourse facilitation, and direct instruction are sub-dimensions of teaching presence (Garrison et al., 1999). The design and organisation dimension reflects aspects regarding the design of the course content, the utilised teaching approach, and instructors’ applied adjustments (if needed) (Anderson et al., 2001). The discourse facilitation dimension illustrates instructors’ devoted efforts to facilitating students’ understanding of the course topics, encouraging their critical thinking, supporting their participation in discussions to share knowledge, keeping them on learning tasks, exploring new concepts, and developing their sense of community (Anderson et al., 2001). The direct instruction dimension reflects instructors’ methods to handle the educational issues that students may encounter during their learning process, such as explaining the most difficult topics, guiding students’ misconceptions, and providing them with feedback in a timely fashion to clarify their strengths and weaknesses (Anderson et al., 2001; Garrison, 2016).

Social presence describes students’ ability to introduce themselves to their colleagues (Garrison et al., 1999). It reflects students’ interactions and cooperation via the medium of communication means (e.g. discussion boards). Social presence includes three sub-dimensions: affective expression, open communication, and group cohesion. Affective expression is related to students' emotions that motivate them to introduce themselves to the course participants (Garrison et al., 1999). Open communication describes the trusted and comfortable interactive learning climate that is required to help students express their agreement and disagreement (Garrison, 2016). Group cohesion is achieved by building a learning community that allows students to collaborate and share knowledge.

Cognitive presence is the core of the community of inquiry framework because it describes the critical thinking process (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007; Garrison et al., 2001). It explains students’ ability to reflect, construct, and build meaning through their participation in reflective practices of inquiry (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). These practices include triggering event, exploration, integration, and resolution (Garrison et al., 2001). The triggering event practices comprise students’ ability to recognise educational issues or problems and apply further inquiry. The exploration practices include students’ trials to collect information and ideas regarding the recognised educational problems from different resources and through their discussions. The integration practices involve students’ reflection and construction of meaningful solutions and explanations of these problems (attempting to find ideas and converting them into solutions) (Swan et al., 2009). The resolution practices include the selection and evaluation of these solutions to gain a resolution to the problem, which eventually reflects the effectiveness of the problem-solving process (Garrison et al., 2001; Swan et al., 2009).

The learning presence dimension was added to extend the original community of inquiry framework and reflect students’ self-regulation practices in online and blended learning environments. Self-regulation is a self-directed process by which students use their mental and academic skills in their learning (Garrison, 2022; Zimmerman, 2002). It describes the motivational, behavioural, and metacognitive traits that students devote to being active during the learning process (Zimmerman, 2008). Accordingly, learning presence is completely distinct from the other teaching, social, and cognitive presences (Kozan & Caskurlu, 2018; Shea et al., 2012). Learning presence involves motivational, behavioural, and developmental traits (Wertz, 2014, 2022). The motivational traits reflect students’ activation and persistence in a selected behaviour as well as their beliefs in their possessed skills to persist or try to develop strategies for an encountered situation (Bandura, 1977). The behavioural traits illustrate students’ usage of self-regulation behaviours. The developmental traits refer to students’ intellectual development, which is an explicit indicator of their self-regulation abilities (Wertz, 2014, 2022).

Relationships among the community of inquiry’s components

The impact of teaching presence on social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence

Previous studies found that teaching presence is significantly correlated with social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007; Kozan & Richardson, 2014; Rubin & Fernandes, 2013; Shea & Bidjerano, 2012; Shea et al., 2012; Traver et al., 2014; Wertz, 2022). Teaching presence is a key factor in the community of inquiry framework because it has a significant role in building a sense of community (Garrison et al., 2010; Tolu, 2013). During the online and blended learning processes, instructors’ presence facilitates students’ social interactions, promotes their motivations, behaviours, and intellectual development, and encourages their cognitive presence (ElSayad, 2023; Law et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2010). Jansen et al. (2020) and Zhang and Lin (2021) asserted that teaching presence, by providing structural teaching activities and immediate interventions during the online learning process, promotes students’ self-regulation. Accordingly, this study hypothesised the following:

H1

Teaching presence positively influences (a) social presence, (b) learning presence, and (c) cognitive presence in the blended learning community of inquiry.

The impact of social presence on learning presence and cognitive presence

Social presence is essential in face-to-face, blended, and online learning environments (Garrison, 2016). It is significantly correlated with students’ learning presence and cognitive presence in online and blended learning environments (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010; Shea et al., 2014; Wertz, 2014; Zhang, 2020; Zhang & Lin, 2021). Shea and Bidjerano (2010) revealed that increasing students’ social interactions during the online or blended learning process increases their self-efficacy, which significantly supports their effort regulation. Moreover, Shea et al. (2014) observed that social interactions among course participants are necessary to ensure students’ cooperation in self- or co-regulating and constructing knowledge during their learning process. Students’ social presence can also foster their cognitive presence by encouraging their critical thinking through their social interactions (Garrison & Akyol, 2013; Zhang & Lin, 2021). According to these discussions, this study anticipates the significant effect of social presence on learning presence and cognitive presence, and thus the following hypotheses were developed:

H2

Social presence positively influences (a) learning presence and (b) cognitive presence in the blended learning community of inquiry.

The impact of learning presence on cognitive presence

The strong correlation between learning presence and cognitive presence was demonstrated in previous studies (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010, 2012; Shea et al., 2014; Traver et al., 2014; Wertz, 2022). Shea and Bidjerano (2010) and Zhang and Lin (2021) examined learning presence through self-efficacy and self-regulation strategies, and their findings revealed that self-efficacious students who have self-regulation skills apply more cognitive learning practices in online and blended learning environments. Moreover, Wertz (2014) and ElSayad (2023) indicated that increasing students’ learning presence by promoting their motivations, behaviours, and intellectual development increases their cognitive presence during the online and blended learning processes. Self-regulatory students have high levels of cognition awareness that enable them to apply more cognitive learning practices (Karaoglan-Yilmaz et al., 2023). Accordingly, this study hypothesised the following:

H3

Learning presence positively influences cognitive presence in the blended learning community of inquiry.

The community of inquiry framework and students’ learning perceptions

In the higher education context, enhancing students’ learning perceptions is important to improve the effectiveness of computer-mediated learning (Dumford & Miller, 2018). Perceived learning is a student-related affective outcome that describes students’ learning progression and constructions (Rovai, 2002; Zhang, 2003). It demonstrates students’ acquired skills and knowledge after encountering a learning experience (Rovai, 2002). Therefore, perceived learning describes the well-designed learning experience, reflects students’ perceptions of their learning experiences, and acts as an essential element to increase students’ recruitment and retention in computer-mediated learning environments (Alqurashi, 2019). While blended learning depends on the integration between instructors, students, and the course content, the community of inquiry framework seems suitable as its components represent a holistic method of teaching and learning for attaining ideal learning experiences and outcomes (Carlon et al., 2012; Coemans & Hannes, 2017). The community of inquiry's components overlap to support students’ learning experiences (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007).

The impacts of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence on perceived learning

The literature has emphasised the critical role played by the original community of inquiry framework to attain learning outcomes, considering the significant effects of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence on students’ learning and satisfaction (Lee et al., 2021; Maddrell et al., 2017; Mills et al., 2016; Richardson et al., 2017). Anderson et al. (2001) and Olpak et al. (2016) articulated that teaching presence works with social presence to construct students’ learning through their application of cognitive practices. In online and blended learning environments, increasing instructors’ presence, social interactions, and students’ cognitive presence contribute to generating students’ learning perceptions and increasing their learning performance (Chen, 2022; Law et al., 2019; Tan, 2021). Yilmaz (2016) and Zhang and Lin (2021) noted that providing a learning process that cultivates course instructors’ presence, enriches social interactions among peers, and encourages students’ applications of cognitive learning practices contributes to promoting students’ knowledge sharing, learning progression, satisfaction, and final grades. According to these discussions, this study hypothesised the following:

H4

(a) Teaching presence, (b) social presence, and (c) cognitive presence positively influence students’ learning perceptions in the blended learning community of inquiry.

The impact of learning presence on perceived learning

There is little knowledge and understanding regarding the impact of the extended community of inquiry framework, which includes learning presence as the fourth presence, on learning outcomes (Zhang & Lin, 2021). From the conceptualisation of learning presence that describes students’ self-regulation process in online and blended learning environments, Shea et al. (2012) asserted that students’ self-regulation skills, by planning, monitoring, and regulating their learning process, are strongly related to increasing their final grades. Furthermore, Eom and Ashill (2018) found that self-regulatory students show high levels of learning and satisfaction perceptions in the computer-mediated learning environment. During the computer-mediated learning process, instructors’ activities, students’ intrinsic motivation, and social interactions significantly promote students’ perceptions of learning and satisfaction (Akyol & Garrison, 2011; Eom & Ashill, 2016; Lee & Bonk, 2016; Maddrell et al., 2017; Martin & Bolliger, 2018; Martin et al., 2022). Accordingly, this study suggests that building a blended learning environment that fosters students’ motivations, behaviours, and intellectual development (which reflect their learning presence) may contribute to enhancing students’ learning experiences by promoting their learning perceptions. Thus, the following hypothesis was developed:

H4d

Learning presence positively influences students’ learning perceptions in the blended learning community of inquiry.

Community of inquiry mediators

The community of inquiry’s components work hand in hand to drive students’ cognitive presence, which in turn generates their learning perceptions (Chen, 2022). Some studies have emphasised the effectiveness of adopting the extended community of inquiry framework in blended learning to foster students’ learning, but the mediation roles played by social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence need further investigation (Garrison, 2012; Law et al., 2019).

Social presence as a mediator

Researchers argued that conducting a learning environment that enriches social presence alone does not guarantee critical discourse development, but social presence is essential for discourse development (Arbaugh, 2008; Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005). Online course instructors have important roles in encouraging students’ social interactions, which in turn support their motivations and behaviours (Shea & Bidjerano, 2012; Shea et al., 2012). The authors claimed that students’ learning presence is projected when course instructors ask them to actively collaborate during the course session. In other words, students’ learning presence is increased when they are involved in collaboration, which can be supported by teaching presence (Shea et al., 2012). Furthermore, Shea and Bidjerano (2009b), Shea et al. (2010), and Garrison et al. (2010) argued that the impact of teaching presence on students’ cognitive presence can be mediated by social presence. Moreover, Lee et al. (2021) found that social presence mediates the relationship between teaching presence and students’ satisfaction with their computer-mediated learning experience. Online students perceive satisfaction, learning progression, and actual learning when the learning environment enriches social interactions among peers, which are encouraged by the course instructor (Bolliger & Halupa, 2018). Drawing from these discussions and arguments, it can be anticipated that increasing teaching presence during the blended learning process will increase students’ social presence, which consequently will encourage their learning and cognitive presence and generate their learning perceptions. Accordingly, this study developed the following hypotheses:

H5

Social presence mediates the effect of teaching presence on (a) learning presence, (b) cognitive presence, and (c) perceived learning in the blended learning community of inquiry.

Learning presence as a mediator

Researchers hypothesised that self-regulation, which reflects the learning presence conceptualisation, can act as a mediator among the community of inquiry counterparts because it works hand in hand with teaching presence and social presence to drive learning outcomes (Shea & Bidjerano, 2010; Zhang & Lin, 2021). Shea and Bidjerano (2010) noted that learning presence comprises self-efficacy and effort regulation traits. Their findings revealed that self-efficacy mediates the effects of teaching presence and social presence on cognitive presence, while effort regulation mediates the effect of social presence on cognitive presence. In the computer-mediated learning context, Shea et al. (2012) asserted that teaching and social presence are significantly related to learning presence, which is a significant predictor of students’ grades. Furthermore, Zhang and Lin (2021) observed that increasing teaching and social presence significantly increased students’ satisfaction, learning progression, and final grades by encouraging their application of self-regulation strategies during their online learning process. Accordingly, it is logical to hypothesise the following:

H6

Learning presence mediates the effects of (a) teaching presence and (b) social presence on cognitive presence in the blended learning community of inquiry.

H7

Learning presence mediates the effects of (a) teaching presence and (b) social presence on perceived learning in the blended learning community of inquiry.

Cognitive presence as a mediator

Previous studies demonstrated that cognitive presence can act as a mediator in the relationships between the community of inquiry’s components and learning outcomes. For example, Zhang and Lin (2021) and Lee et al. (2021) asserted that increasing teaching presence promotes students’ learning performance and satisfaction by increasing their cognitive presence during their online learning experience. Self-regulatory students are likely to apply cognitive learning practices that significantly increase their learning progression, satisfaction, and final grades (Zhang & Lin, 2021). Moreover, Maddrell et al. (2017) found that teaching and social presence are significantly related to cognitive presence, which in turn has a significant impact on students’ learning perceptions. Accordingly, it is logical to hypothesise the following:

H8

Cognitive presence mediates the effects of (a) teaching presence, (b) social presence, and (c) learning presence on perceived learning in the blended learning community of inquiry.

Methodology

Data collection, settings, and participants

An online survey was sent by email to undergraduate students who were enrolled in blended learning courses at the management and technology college of a higher education institution in Egypt during the 14th and 15th weeks of the first semester of 2021–2022. To ensure capturing real perceptions of students’ experiences, they were informed that their responses are anonymous and will only be used for research purposes. Due to the social distance precaution that was applied during the COVID-19 pandemic, all courses involved several groups with small numbers of students. Each course was taught two times per week for each group: once in the classroom and once online. The Moodle platform was utilised to upload the course materials, electronic books, presentations, instructors’ self-recorded videos, and weekly assignments. Besides, the Zoom application was used to conduct synchronous lectures (for 2 h per week) for each group in each course, which facilitated students’ and instructors’ interactions and discussions.

Of the 210 responses received, 21 were dropped because they were observed as outliers (observations that were substantially distinct from the other observations) or straight-liners (the same response was given to all questions), yielding 198 valid responses that were ready for the data analysis process. The study participants were enrolled in the business information systems department. As shown in Table 1, most of the participants (98.5%) were aged between 16 and 24 years old, while 1.5% were over 24 years old. Of the participants, 65.2% were males and 34.8% were females. They were from different years of the university: 8.6% of freshmen, 52% of sophomores, 22.7% of juniors, and 16.6% of seniors. Moreover, they were enrolled in different courses: 46% in the social media course, 23.2% in the web design fundamentals course, 5.1% in the e-commerce technologies course, 17.7% in the information retrieval and search engine optimisation course, and 8.1% in the introduction to information systems course.

Table 1 Respondents' profile
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Survey instruments

The survey of this study comprised pre-validated scales from previous studies (Arbaugh et al., 2008; Bolliger & Halupa, 2018; ElSayad, 2023; Shea & Bidjerano, 2009a; Swan et al., 2008; Wertz, 2014, 2022; Zhang, 2003). The original community of inquiry measurement survey comprised 34 indicators (Arbaugh et al., 2008; Shea & Bidjerano, 2009a; Swan et al., 2008): 13 teaching presence indicators, nine social presence indicators, and 12 cognitive presence indicators. The learning presence scale was developed by Wertz (2014, 2022) and comprised three motivational indicators, three behavioural indicators, and three development indicators. The perceived learning scale was developed by Zhang (2003) and included three indicators. All the indicators were ranked on a five-point Likert scale ranging from \(1= strongly disagree\) to \(5= strongly agree\). The survey questions were applied to the required-answer option to avoid the existence of missing values.

Data analysis procedures

The SPSS software was used to evaluate the descriptive statistics (e.g. mean and standard deviation (SD) values) and the adequacy of the study data. Moreover, the SmartPLS software was used to examine the measurement model of the study variables, structural relationships among the variables, and mediation analyses based on partial least squares structural equation modelling (Hair et al., 2014). In the first step, the measurement model was examined to assess the variables’ internal consistency reliability and convergent validity (to evaluate how well the variables are measured by their associated survey indicators) by inspecting the indicators’ loadings, Cronbach’s alpha (α), composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE) values. Furthermore, the variables’ discriminant validity was assessed by inspecting the Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) criterion to ensure that indicators’ average correlations across the study variables do not equal or exceed the value of 0.90 (Gold et al., 2001; Hair et al., 2014). In the second step, the examination of whether to support or reject the study's hypotheses was performed by inspecting the statistical significance tests (namely, path coefficients (β), t-value, and p-value) (Kline, 2011). In the final step, the mediation analysis was conducted using bootstrapping of 5000 resamples to generate the confidence intervals (CI) of indirect effects from one variable to another (Preacher & Hayes, 2008).

Results

The study results yielded a Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) value with a significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity (BTS) value (p < 0.000), indicating the adequacy of the study data. As presented in Table 2, the mean scores ranged from 3.916 to 4.231, with SD values ranging between 0.757 and 0.915, indicating that the study participants almost agreed with the survey questions. As presented in Table 2, the results of the measurement model assessment revealed that all indicators’ loadings exceeded the threshold of 0.708 (Hair et al., 2014), except for the LP1 indicator which was dropped. Furthermore, the α, CR, and AVE values exceeded the thresholds of 0.70, 0.70, and 0.50, respectively (Hair et al., 2014), indicating that the variables’ measurement models have achieved the reliability and convergent validity criteria. As can be seen in Table 3, all HTMT ratios are below the value of 0.90, indicating the absence of the discriminant validity issue among the study variables.

Table 2 Descriptive statistics and measurement model results
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Table 3 Discriminant validity results
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Before examining the structural model, the lateral collinearity issue was inspected as recommended by Hair et al. (2017). As illustrated in Table 4, all variance extracted factor (VIF) values are below the value of five, demonstrating the absence of the lateral collinearity issue (Hair et al., 2017).

Table 4 Results of the direct and indirect effects
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As presented in Fig. 1 and Table 4, all the hypotheses are significant except H1c, H4a, H4b, H5c, H7a, H7b, H8a, and H8b. More specifically, the results revealed that teaching presence has significant positive effects on social presence (\(\beta =0.731\), \(t=19.694\), \(p<0.001\)) and learning presence (\(\beta =0.441\), \(t=5.564\), \(p<0.001\)). However, teaching presence has insignificant effects on cognitive presence (\(\beta =0.110\), \(t=1.424\), \(p>0.05\)) and perceived learning (\(\beta =0.018\), \(t=0.171\), \(p>0.05\)). Social presence has significant positive effects on learning presence (\(\beta =0.322\), \(t=4.272\), \(p<0.001\)) and cognitive presence (\(\beta =0.361\), \(t=5.209\), \(p<0.001\)). However, social presence has an insignificant effect on perceived learning (\(\beta =0.064\), \(t=0.518\), \(p>0.05\)). Furthermore, learning presence has significant positive effects on cognitive presence (\(\beta =0.510\), \(t=8.647\), \(p<0.001\)) and perceived learning (\(\beta =0.274\), \(t=1.720\), \(p<0.05\)). On the contrary, cognitive presence has a significant negative effect on perceived learning (\(\beta =-0.355\), \(t=2.095\), \(p<0.05\)), rejecting H4c.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Path coefficient estimates of the significant direct effects. Note \(N=198\), *\(p<0.05\), **\(p<0.01\), ***\(p<0.001\)

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As illustrated in Table 4, the results of the mediation analysis revealed that social presence has significant mediation roles in the effects of teaching presence on learning presence (\(\beta =0.235\), \(t=4.356\), \(p<0.001\)) and cognitive presence (\(\beta =0.264\), \(t=4.904\), \(p<0.001\)). However, social presence has an insignificant mediation effect on the relationship between teaching presence and perceived learning (\(\beta =0.047\), \(t=0.511\), \(p>0.05\)). Learning presence has mediation roles in the effects of teaching presence (\(\beta =0.225\), \(t=5.380\), \(p<0.001\)) and social presence (\(\beta =0.164\), \(t=3.764\), \(p<0.001\)) on cognitive presence. However, learning presence does not mediate the effects of teaching presence (\(\beta =0.121\), \(t=1.623\), \(p>0.05\)) and social presence (\(\beta =0.088\), \(t=1.614\), \(p>0.05\)) on perceived learning. Lastly, cognitive presence has a significant mediation effect on the relationship between learning presence and perceived learning (\(\beta =-0.181\), \(t=2.035\), \(p<0.05\)) and insignificant mediation effects on the effects of teaching presence (\(\beta =-0.039\), \(t=1.105\), \(p>0.05\)) and social presence (\(\beta =-0.128\), \(t=1.824\), \(p>0.05\)) on perceived learning.

Discussion

The primary goal of this study is to examine the structural relationships among teaching presence, social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence in the blended learning community of inquiry. Furthermore, it investigates their impact on perceived learning (as an affective outcome), considering the mediation roles of social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence. The key findings of this study are discussed in the following sections:

The structural relationships among the extended community of inquiry’s components

The study’s findings revealed that teaching presence positively influences social presence and learning presence, which is consistent with the findings of previous studies (Shea & Bidjerano, 2012; Zhang & Lin, 2021). This illustrates that increasing instructors’ presence by designing course materials, facilitating students’ learning, and guiding them during their learning process contributes to increasing their social interactions and fostering their learning motivations, behaviours, and intellectual development. As the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic that has established emergency blended learning in higher education, this study suggests that higher education institutions should consider the critical role played by course instructors in delivering a successful learning process. More specifically, the findings demonstrated that even in an emergency blended learning context, course instructors’ presence is essential to encouraging students’ social interactions and promoting their self-regulation behaviours. Course instructors have significant roles in encouraging students’ motivation and self-regulation in computer-mediated learning environments (Eom & Ashill, 2016, 2018). Instructors’ provided guidance facilitates students’ social interactions, supports their self-regulation process, and allows them to remain engaged with their learning to achieve their desired learning outcomes (Law et al., 2019; Martin & Bolliger, 2018; Tolu, 2013; Zhang & Lin, 2021).

Furthermore, the findings indicated that social presence positively influences learning presence, confirming previous studies’ findings (Shea & Bidjerano, 2012; Zhang & Lin, 2021). This demonstrates that the more students are socially presented by expressing themselves to their colleagues and course instructor, interacting together, and working in a trusted group, the more they perceive higher levels of learning motivation, behaviour, and development. Hence, the findings of this study confirm Garrison's (2016) argument that social presence is essential in all learning contexts and add new evidence regarding the importance of social presence to encourage students’ self-regulation behaviours in the emergency blended learning context. Enriching students’ social interactions during their learning process is important to maintain their self- and co-regulation behaviours (Shea et al., 2014).

The study results also demonstrated that social presence and learning presence significantly influence cognitive presence, illustrating that students who perceive high social interactions and apply motivational, behavioural, and developmental strategies during their learning process are likely to apply cognitive learning practices. Consistent with Shea and Bidjerano (2012), Wertz (2014), Zhang and Lin (2021), and ElSayad (2023), who argued that students’ social interactions and self-regulation are essential in online and blended learning environments to encourage their cognitive practices of inquiry, this study also emphasises their importance to encourage students’ cognitive presence during the emergency blended learning environment. On the contrary, the findings showed an insignificant relationship between teaching presence and cognitive presence, which contradicts previous studies’ findings (Shea & Bidjerano, 2012; Wertz, 2014; Zhang & Lin, 2021). It is possible that because of the emerging situation of blended learning encountered by the instructors of the courses from which the study data were drawn, they did not get the required time to pre-plan for the teaching presence’s aspects (namely, instructional design and organisation, discourse facilitation, and direct instructions) needed to drive students’ cognitive practices of inquiry. Though many higher education institutions in Egypt have established strong infrastructure and communications to handle the emergency blended learning situation, some educators were not prepared to design and conduct their classes for blended learning.

The structural relationships between the extended community of inquiry’s components and perceived learning

Importantly, the results revealed that perceived learning is mostly driven by learning presence, illustrating that self-regulatory students who apply motivational, behavioural, and developmental strategies perceive high learning. This demonstrates that the students included in this study were more independent and devoted their effort to self-regulating their learning process and, thereby, achieving their learning outcomes during the emergency blended learning process. In computer-mediated learning environments where students encounter more autonomy, self-regulation is essential to controlling their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, managing their learning process, and attaining the desired outcomes (Jansen et al., 2020). Therefore, learning presence has a critical role in the attainment of learning outcomes (Zhang & Lin, 2021). Zimmerman (2002) claimed that course instructors should prepare students to become self-regulatory learners in computer-mediated learning environments. To increase students’ self-regulation skills, course instructors should train students on how to set goals for their learning, monitor their progress, and apply adjustments (if needed). Further, course instructors should provide students with high-quality and goal-directed feedback to motivate their self-reflection on their learning.

Surprisingly, the results revealed that cognitive presence negatively influences perceived learning, explaining that students with high cognitive presence show low levels of learning perception in the blended learning environment. This contradicts Akyol and Garrisons' (2011), Maddrell et al.s' (2017), and Chen's (2022) findings, which indicated that cognitive presence is a significant contributor to perceived learning. As the study’s results demonstrated that cognitive presence is influenced by social presence and learning presence but not by teaching presence, it is possible that the students (from whom the study data were collected) might not receive the needed instructional strategies and guidance for enabling their applications of cognitive learning practices because of the emergency blended learning situation, which led to low learning perceptions. Instead, the students relied on their self-regulation skills and the knowledge shared through their social interactions to construct their cognitive learning. Lee et al. (2021) argued that teaching presence is an important condition for creating students’ cognitive presence, through which students translate their perceptions of the course design as well as of the directions, facilitation, and guidance provided by their instructors into their construction of meaning through the reflection of inquiry practices.

The mediation roles of social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence

The study findings demonstrated that teaching presence indirectly influences learning presence and cognitive presence through social presence. This illustrates that increasing instructors’ presence significantly increases students' social interactions, which, consequently, promotes their learning motivation, behaviour, and development and encourages their application of cognitive learning practices. Likewise, the findings indicated that teaching presence and social presence indirectly influence cognitive presence through learning presence. This finding explains that increasing instructors’ presence and social interactions among peers contribute to fostering students’ learning motivation, behaviour, and development, which, in turn, encourages their applications of cognitive learning practices. Drawing from these findings, this study confirms that social presence and learning presence are important practices that should be considered in the emergency blended learning environment to support students’ cognitive presence and attain their learning perceptions. Zhang and Lin (2021) articulated that learning presence reflects how students interpret their teaching and social presence perceptions into their cognitive presence. Furthermore, this study supports Garrison’s (2016) argument that teaching presence integrates the community of inquiry’s components in a way that drives learning. In computer-mediated learning environments, course instructors’ activities have important roles in encouraging social interactions among students, luring their psychological state, generating their sense of belonging to the learning community, increasing their active learning, and thereby delivering a successful online learning process (Eom & Ashill, 2018).

Lastly, because of the negative effect of cognitive presence on perceived learning, the findings indicated a negative mediation effect of cognitive presence on the relationship between learning presence and perceived learning. On the contrary, the findings showed that cognitive presence insignificantly mediates the effects of teaching presence and social presence on perceived learning. This study revealed that students’ learning presence and cognitive presence are the sole drivers of their learning perceptions in the emergency blended learning environment, which may demonstrate the reasons behind these findings. Shea et al. (2014) asserted that students exhibit different strategies, motivations, and behaviours in their learning process, which makes their learning presence essential in computer-based learning environments where students may encounter less support from their instructors and fellow students.

To sum up, the study findings observed many significant relationships between the original community of inquiry components (namely, teaching, social, and cognitive presence) and the additional presence (namely, learning presence). This answers Kozan and Caskurlus' (2018) and Wertz's (2022) questions of whether learning presence is structurally related to the original community of inquiry presences by proving their inter-relationships. The most noteworthy finding from this study is that learning presence is the most important contributor to driving cognitive presence and perceived learning (as an outcome). These findings confirm the theoretical predictions of extending the community of inquiry framework by adding learning presence to reflect students’ self-regulation and attain better learning experiences and outcomes in the emergency blended learning environment. Since students are required to manage their learning process by monitoring their time, applying learning strategies, regulating their learning environment, and controlling their cognition, emotions, and behaviours, their learning presence cannot be separated from the blended learning community of inquiry (Shea et al., 2012).

In addition, the current study proved the significant mediation roles of social presence and learning presence in the extended community of inquiry framework. Its findings support Shea and Bidjeranos' (2009b), Shea et al.s' (2010), Shea and Bidjeranos' (2010), and Garrison's (2012) arguments suggesting that social presence and learning presence can serve as critical mediators of the links between teaching presence and cognitive presence. Although this study indicated a negative mediation effect of cognitive presence on the relationship between learning presence and perceived learning, it demonstrates how students’ motivational, behavioural, and intellectual development traits can transform their cognitive perceptions and translate them into learning outcomes.

Conclusion and limitations

This study examined the structural relationships among the teaching, social, learning, and cognitive components of the extended community of inquiry in the blended learning context. In addition, it established a connection between the extended community of inquiry framework and learning outcomes by investigating the potential impacts of its components on students’ learning perceptions. It also considered the mediation roles of social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence. The study findings demonstrated significant relationships between the four presences. More specifically, teaching presence was found to significantly influence social presence and be the most important factor in driving students’ learning presence during their blended learning process. Social presence significantly influences learning presence, which is the most important factor in driving students’ cognitive presence and learning perceptions. Notably, learning presence was found to be the sole presence that links the extended community of inquiry framework with learning outcomes (here, students’ learning perceptions). The findings also revealed that social presence mediates the effect of teaching presence on learning presence and cognitive presence. Learning presence mediates the effects of teaching presence and social presence on cognitive presence. Furthermore, cognitive presence mediates the effect of learning presence on perceived learning.

Theoretically, this study adds new evidence that confirms the ongoing debate in the literature about the importance of integrating learning presence into the community of inquiry framework to provide students with better learning experiences. Specifically, its findings highlight the important role played by learning presence in reflecting students’ interpretations of their blended learning perceptions into their cognitive presence and learning perceptions. The findings demonstrate that teaching presence, social presence, and learning presence should go hand in hand with cognitive presence to provide a successful blended learning community. Additionally, this study adds to the community of inquiry literature new evidence regarding the significant mediation roles of social presence, learning presence, and cognitive presence. Practically, the findings of this study can help practitioners and stakeholders understand how to conduct a sustainable blended learning community that cultivates students’ cognitive presence and learning perceptions.

Despite these theoretical and practical contributions, this study has several limitations. First, because the participants in this study were drawn from a single higher education institution in Egypt, it is difficult to generalise its findings. Therefore, there is a need for additional research to include students from different universities in Egypt as well as universities in other countries. This generalisability issue should be considered as the current COVID-19 pandemic circumstance has emerged in computer-based learning environments at most higher education institutions worldwide. Second, the study participants were enrolled in courses in the same major, which means that they almost knew each other and studied in the same environment. Therefore, their perceptions may vary when they encounter a learning environment that includes students from different departments (most of whom have probably never met before). Thus, further research to investigate students’ perceptions of the blended courses that comprise students of different majors could be conducted, and the results could be compared to this study's results. Third, this study adopted a cross-sectional research design to capture students’ perceptions of the blended learning community of inquiry, and conducting longitudinal and qualitative research would help in providing deeper insights and expanding this study’s findings. Fourth, this study investigated students’ learning perceptions using three simple indicators of the perceived learning construct that may have different conceptualisations in the literature. Thus, further research to examine students’ learning perceptions with the same indicators is necessary to confirm the findings of this study. Finally, the current study considered investigating students’ learning perceptions as an outcome, and additional research to investigate other affective outcomes (such as student satisfaction) and cognitive outcomes (such as learning achievement) is needed to understand to what extent the community of inquiry framework contributes to attaining learning outcomes.