Factors affecting the adoption of the Community of Inquiry Framework in Australian online nursing education : A transition theory perspective

Objectives
This paper aims to understand the factors influencing the adoption of teaching, social and cognitive presence in online nursing education and explain the novice nurse academics journey in adopting these aspects.

Background
The quality of the online/blended courses is about the content and a need for suitable pedagogical design, clear instructions and a collaborative environment based on a valid and reliable theoretical framework.

Design and settings
A qualitative study involves semi-structured interviews with 11 nurse academics from three Australian Universities and thematic analysis was conducted.

Results and conclusions
The Community of Inquiry framework informed three themes including several factors in each from the interviews: (1) Teaching Presence (TP): the lack of understanding of educational theory use, the inadequate course evaluation and the resources scarcity found to be the factors affecting the adoption of TP in online nursing education; (2) Social Presence: the engagement difficulty and creating a learning community affected the adoption of SP; and (3) Cognitive Presence: the variety in learning styles and formative assessment and discussion forums found to be affecting the adoption of CP. This study paper is unique because it uses the Community of Inquiry framework and Meleis’s Transition Theory and provides insight on how to facilitate the transition [from role insufficiencies to role supplementation to role mastery] of nurse academics’ journey in adopting teaching, social and cognitive presence for online higher education.