Learning through social distancing: Whatsapp as a community of inquiry

ABSTRACT

Once upon a time, researchers believed that the effective use of an online social media network to support a virtual community is dependent on the participants’ interest in the context within which the community exists and the willingness of the participants to be part of mobile instant messaging groups. But I thought that interacting via WhatsApp groups will enable them to accept differing views and opinions as part of the group activities. This could ensure effective group engagement and co-creation of learning. I taught a 45 to 60 minute lesson every week to first-year students. The group was divided into smaller sub-groups and assigned individual and group tasks. I analysed the messages that they sent in the form of answers, responses and feedbacks. Four questions aligned to the community of inquiry framework, form part of this study (1) Social presence-How has WhatsApp contributed to student’s learning? (2) Teaching presence-Has the selected mode of engagement attracted students? (3) Cognitive presence-What kind of messages were conveyed? (4) Academic performance-Has it been beneficial towards their learning and in achieving learning outcomes? Data were collected during weekly lectures to first-year students using WhatsApp as a mobile instant messaging (MIM) platform and were analysed through WhatsAnalyzer. Finally, a matrix was proposed for the analysis of various aspects of communities of practice. I discovered that WhatsApp facilitated high levels of interactivity within the groups during the COVID19 lockdown, which will change the future of remote or online teaching. However, more research needs to be carried out to understand the reasons why some students learn better than others. © the authors, 2021. All Rights Reserved.