Humanizing online pedagogy with stream: the mediating role of students’ sense of agency within the community of inquiry

Nor Asiah Razak (Sultan Idris Education University)
Che Zalina Zulkifli (Sultan Idris Education University)
Yusri Abdullah (Sultan Idris Education University)
Muhammad Akmal Hakim Azammullah (Sultan Idris Education University)
Puteri Zarina Megat Khalid (University Pendidikan Sultan Idris)
Harmeet Singh (Universiti Teknologi MARA)
Sarfraz Aslam (UNITAR International University)
Ng Soo Boon (SEGi University)
Umarkhon Mukhamedov (National Institute of Fine Arts and Design)

International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE)
Vol 15, No 5: October 2026

This study explores whether students’ sense of agency mediates the relationship between stream integration and the three presences of the community of inquiry (CoI) framework, namely, cognitive, social, and teaching presence in online higher education. A cross-sectional survey design was employed to undergraduates (n=107) from four Malaysian universities by validated instruments for data collection, measured stream integration, sense of agency, and CoI presence. PLS-SEM was employed for data analysis using SmartPLS 4 software, adhering to a two-step process. Stream integration significantly predicted cognitive (β=0.573), social (β=0.405), and teaching presence (β=0.433), as well as sense of agency (β=0.497), all p