Social and cognitive presence in a community of inquiry: An epistemic network analysis of CALL students' interactions via nowcomment

Simply placing learners in computer-supported collaborative learning environments cannot result in successful collaborative learning. To investigate how collaborative learning happens through online communication, studying learners' interactions is of crucial importance. Accordingly, the present quantitative ethnographic study used an epistemic network analysis (ENA) approach to investigate social and cognitive presence in students' interactions based on the community of inquiry (CoI) framework. To do so, students' interactions via an online annotation tool called Nowcomment in a computer-assisted language learning course (CALL) were collected and examined. The data was coded based on the social presence indicators and cognitive presence phases of CoI. ENA was used to visualize the relationships between social indicators and cognitive phases for all the students, for high and low score students, and at the beginning and end of the course. The results indicated that among social presence indicators, the affective category had the weakest, and the interactive had the strongest relationships with cognitive phases, especially exploration, and integration. There were connections between social indicators and cognitive phases of, triggering and exploration for high score students, and exploration and integration for low scores. Additionally, the present study did not show any improvement toward resolution, the last phase of cognitive development.