Examining the Reliability and Validity of a Turkish Version of the Community of Inquiry Survey

Abstract

The aim of this study was to describe the validity and reliability of a Turkish language version of the CoI survey developed by Arbaugh et al. (2008). Data were obtained from 1150 students enrolled in online courses in various departments in three Turkish state universities. The data were randomly divided into two parts: the first part was subjected to exploratory factor analysis; the second part underwent confirmatory factor analysis. A three-factor structure of the CoI framework explained 75.28% of the variance in the pattern of relationships among the items using the first split-half sample. All three presences had high reliabilities (teaching presence=.965, social presence=.953, and cognitive presence=.972). The three-factor structure of the CoI framework with teaching, social, and cognitive presences confirmed the validity of the Turkish version of the CoI survey.