The purpose of this study is to investigate the perceptions and experiences of English preparatory school instructors from the perspective of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework in online education settings during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study employs a mixed-methods research design, specifically concurrent triangulation design. The quantitative phase of the study includes a survey completed by 140 prep school instructors using snowball sampling. The survey examines the perceptions of participants concerning the three elements of the community of inquiry, teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence, as well as the challenges the participants faced during online education. The qualitative phase comprises semi-structured interviews with 6 of the participants who took the survey. The interview questions focus on the advantages and disadvantages of online education along with the participants’ efforts to create interaction in their classes. Data from the survey were analysed using SPSS in the form of descriptive statistics with means, percentages and standard deviations. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded through thematic content analysis. The results of the survey indicate that while a slightly significant positive correlation was found between overall CoI, teaching presence and social presence with online teaching experience, no significant correlation was found between online teaching experience and cognitive presence with an r score close to .0. Furthermore, prep school instructors create interaction during online teaching using collaborative tasks, Web 2.0 tools and personal information from students. The findings from the interviews suggest the following emerging themes: assessment and feedback, social interaction and getting to know students, convenience, technical problems, and attendance issues.

Keywords

covid-19 · learner perception · preparatory school