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Community of Inquiry Survey

CoI-34
educationsocial sciencesFree for research use

Permission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no license fee. Cite the original publication.

A 34-item survey of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in online and blended learning communities.

Items
34
Response format
5-point Likert scale
Version
Original 34-item three-presence survey
Subscales
3

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Perceptions of the online learning community were measured with the 34-item Community of Inquiry Survey (Arbaugh et al., 2008), yielding Teaching, Social, and Cognitive Presence scores (original α = .94, .91, and .95).

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Reliability & validation

Validation population
Graduate students in online education and business courses across four institutions (Arbaugh et al., 2008)
Cronbach's α
0.91–0.95

Subscales

Teaching PresenceSocial PresenceCognitive Presence

Response anchors

Strongly disagree · Disagree · Neutral · Agree · Strongly agree

Known limitations

The original validation sample comprised graduate students in online education and business courses, so generalization to other levels, disciplines, and face-to-face settings should be justified. Scores describe perceived presence, not learning outcomes.

Original citation

Arbaugh, J. B., Cleveland-Innes, M., Diaz, S. R., Garrison, D. R., Ice, P., Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. P. (2008). Developing a community of inquiry instrument: Testing a measure of the Community of Inquiry framework using a multi-institutional sample. The Internet and Higher Education, 11(3-4), 133-136.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2008.06.003

Questions researchers ask

What does the CoI-34 measure?

A 34-item survey of teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence in online and blended learning communities.

How many items does the CoI-34 have?

The Community of Inquiry Survey (CoI-34) has 34 items across 3 subscales: Teaching Presence, Social Presence, Cognitive Presence.

Is the CoI-34 free to use?

The CoI-34 is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Is the CoI-34 reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.91–0.95. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the CoI-34, and how do I cite it?

Arbaugh, J. B., Cleveland-Innes, M., Diaz, S. R., Garrison, D. R., Ice, P., Richardson, J. C., & Swan, K. P. (2008). Developing a community of inquiry instrument: Testing a measure of the Community of Inquiry framework using a multi-institutional sample. The Internet and Higher Education, 11(3-4), 133-136. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2008.06.003

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Library entry verified August 2026. Metadata is provided for reference. Questionnaires are built in Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing, and can be taken to Qualtrics, Google Forms or Microsoft Forms, with their CSV responses brought back for scoring.