This study explores the predictive and mediating roles of social and teaching presence on cognitive presence within a virtual reality (VR)-mediated Community of Inquiry (CoI). The aim is to understand how these presences contribute to fostering meaningful cognitive engagement in collaborative VR learning environments. Virtual Reality offers unique opportunities to enhance teaching and learning, especially in engineering education, where it can scale learning environments and enrich student experiences. However, effective learning in VR requires the integration of social presence to optimize engagement and cognitive development. As learning in VR is still an emerging field, there is a need for more research to understand how to effectively facilitate cognitive presence in these environments.

Research participants engaged in land-surveying tasks using a desktop VR platform, following the CoI framework, and completed questionnaires about their learning experience. Path analysis of two models was conducted to assess the predictive and mediating effects of teaching and social presence on cognitive presence. The findings indicate that both social and teaching presence significantly predict cognitive presence, with social presence emerging as a stronger predictor and mediator. Nevertheless, teaching presence also played a meaningful role in shaping cognitive presence in both models. These results have important implications for leveraging VR learning environments to support collaborative and cognitively engaging educational experiences.