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Abstract
Social work education is facing an increased use of distance education formats, including fully online and blended/hybrid/mixed-mode models (Cummings, Chaffin & Cockerham, 2015; Hill-Jones, 2015; Zidan, 2015). However, many social work educators remain skeptical about the effectiveness of distance education formats (Moore, 2005; Pelech, Wulff, Perrault, Ayala, Baynton, Williams, Crowder, & Shankar, 2013; Sharkey, 2000; Vernon, Vakalahi, Pierce, Pittman-Munke, & Adkins, 2009) and research remains focused in that domain (Bentley, Secret, & Cummings, 2015; Cummings, et al., 2015; Hill - Jones, 2015; Kurzman, 2013; Reamer, 2013; Zidan, 2015). The field of social work education has yet to fully examine and adopt a consistent model for course design, implementation, and evaluation that supports the values and purpose of the social work profession (Blackmon, 2013; Reamer, 2013; Zidan, 2015). The Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, a research-based seminal work, provides a structure for integrating a collaborative constructivist approach to course design, implementation, and evaluation (Garrison, 2017). The CoI framework suggests that by fostering three essential elements: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence, a community of inquiry can be created to promote student engagement and learning (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000). This research explored the concepts of the CoI framework, its presence in the literature, and the framework’s applicability to distance formats in social work education. Results of the study indicate that both students and instructors perceive the essential elements of the CoI in distance education format social work courses. Furthermore, the research indicates that the elements of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework exist in social work courses at all levels of study (BSW, MSW, and DSW) and in varied distance education course designs. Students and instructors with diverse experience with distance format social work courses recognize the existence of the primary elements of the CoI framework.