TEACHING PRESENCE AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT: THE MEDIATING ROLES OF SOCIAL AND COGNITIVE PRESENCES

Year 2026, Volume: 27 Issue: 1, 1 - 11, 01.01.2026

Ozge Ceren Celik

https://doi.org/10.17718/tojde.1613854

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relations between teaching presence, social presence, cognitive presence and academic achievement based on a model testing the mediating role of social and cognitive presence between teaching presence and achievement. The study group of the study was composed of 248 preservice teachers, chosen based on the convenience sampling method. The Community of Inquiry Survey was used to determine pre-service self-reported perceptions on teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence while pre-service teachers’ grades in the Research Methods in Education course was accepted as the academic achievement scores. Analysis based on the serial multiple mediator model showed that teaching presence not only directly and positively predicted academic achievement, but it also had an indirect and positive impact on academic achievement through social presence and cognitive presence. Results suggest that enhancing teaching presence improve academic achievement while it also serves to improve social and cognitive presences. The potential negative influence of social presence on academic achievement could also be avoided if instructors can use social presence as an vehicle to enhance cognitive presence. Further studies could also be performed with different study groups and courses based on data collection tools that particularly examine students’ actual learning performance within the framework of Community of Inquiry.

Keywords

community of inquiry , teaching presence , social presence , cognitive presence , academic achievement

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