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The community of inquiry (CoI) framework suggests social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence are essential elements to foster successful educational experiences in computer-mediated distance learning environments. Although thousands of CoI-based articles have been published, those critical of the framework and related research suggest a lack of empirical evidence to support the framework's central claim that a CoI fostering learners' social, teaching, and cognitive presence leads to deep and meaningful learning outcomes. The current study conducted with 51 graduate students in five distance education courses compared student responses to a CoI perception survey with three instructor-assessed learning achievement measures. No relationship was found between the students' perceptions of their participation within the CoI and any of the three instructor-assessed learning achievement measures, suggesting the value of the CoI framework as an educational process model remains challenged.

Interaction is a critical component of distance education and involves the transfer of information between the learner and content, learner and learner, or learner and instructor (Moore, 1989). Current distance education literature has examined the role of interaction, specifically learner-learner interaction, in learning and discussion design to enhance achievement. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of restricted and traditional discussion boards on critical thinking and learning in a graduate-level online distance education course. Findings indicated improved critical thinking in the quality and preparation strategies of initial discussion board postings when participants' views of peer responses to discussion board questions were restricted until a predetermined date. Although the overall quality of subsequent postings was not affected, content analysis revealed a significant increase in discourse and revised opinions in the restricted format. (Contains 2 tables.)