Date of Conferral

6-23-2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Education

Advisor

Gladys Arome

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic shut down science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college labs due to the restricted physical access to resources. The problem that was addressed in this study was that there is a lack of understanding of how the three presences of the community of inquiry were implemented by STEM lab instructors when developing online lab courses during emergency remote teaching (ERT). The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to explore perspectives of college STEM lab instructors regarding social, teaching, and cognitive presences in online versions of their lab courses during ERT. Data were collected using semistructured interviews with 12 college lab instructors who transferred their labs online during the COVID-19 pandemic recruited through a third-party service. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Five themes emerged: (1) instructors’ perspectives of the social presence were influenced by the challenges and emotions of establishing this presence; (2) technology was used as a tool to facilitate social presence; (3) establishing a teaching presence was a priority; (4) instructors made pedagogical changes based on student observations to establish teaching presence despite challenges and emotional tolls; and (5) instructors valued the cognitive presence and overcame challenges to establish it. Findings can provide insights that may improve online and blended STEM lab courses and may lead to positive social change by improving the student experience and success while taking online STEM lab courses.

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