Examining Some Assumptions about ‘Community’ in Online Learning

Posted on February 29, 2008 by Barbara Macaulay

Barbara Macaulay, CAO, UMassOnline Here I go, breaking every blogging rule in the book, but some subjects just demand a little more room for a few more words. So with my apologies…

Here’s a fact that hasn’t been discussed previously on this blog: Online student attrition rates are 10% to 20% higher than for students attending face to face classes in higher education. It’s a fact that has led some critics of distance education to suggest that online learning can never attain the satisfaction levels of a traditional approach. Among online proponents and academic researchers, this fact has spawned countless studies in a quest to isolate the factor or factors responsible for this outcome among distance learners.

Most of the research studies start with one or more reasonable hypotheses: physical distance from campus must be the cause; psychological or transactional distance and separations of time and space may be at the root of this issue; the limitations of technology to recreate a sense of community akin to a college campus are at fault.

So far, in my opinion, none of these theories have been supported by the research. And, in support of that opinion, here’s an abstract of a recent study entitled, “Perceptions of Online Course Communications and Collaboration.” While this is a report about a survey principally intended to determine how gender and course difficulty levels may affect online students’ satisfaction levels, it provides a fairly comprehensive review of related studies focused on achievement and retention factors for online learners. It says distance, physical or otherwise, is not a factor and that satisfaction levels and a sense of community are achieved equally in online and face to face offerings.

Still, even among experienced classroom academics in higher education, there remains a level of skepticism about the online world’s ability to achieve a real sense of community for students. I have never shared this suspicion and now that I am again teaching online, I’m more confirmed than ever in my belief that rich community experiences can be created and offered to online students. So then, what accounts for this disconnect; how is it that experienced faculty can hold two distinct impressions separated by such a wide disparity in view?

In this post, I want to share with you what I know – and what I acknowledge none of us knows for sure – about online community building. And, I want to ask any and all online students, whether attending UMassOnline or any other institution, to tell us their own version of the contemporary reality because quite frankly I think they are more of an authority on this subject than anyone.

Here’s what I believe:

Assumptions are made about what “community” means within courses and sometimes there is a misguided sense that community building takes place in all courses that are face-to-face and not at all in courses online. Obviously, the truth is somewhere in between and resides with a faculty member’s way of designing a course. Things that can build that sense of belonging, that esprit de corps, are guided discussions, group exercises, team projects, debates, role playing, brainstorming, group research and the like—and all of these things can be done online.

We don’t know if students, particularly adult and continuing education students, consciously seek community when they sign up for courses or apply to be admitted to programs. My guess is that the first order of priority for them is more practical—complete a course, meet a program requirement, get a degree, and meet job requirements. I think meeting people and feeling a part of something bigger than a course is an unexpected bonus for them. Adult students know that in attending part-time, online, face-to-face, and/or blended courses, they have had to opt out of the traditional program opportunities, but they do so consciously, as other realities in their lives take precedence.

Adult students have communities elsewhere in their lives –families, neighborhoods, etc. On campus students also would probably tell you that their communities are formed outside of class.

I think that there will always be students who feel a part of “something” when they are students and those who feel as though they are on the outside looking in.

Clearly we need to think about the levels of community formation that interest students. My suspicion is that these include knowledge communities, program communities, and social communities. Probably the first two can be formed online as well as they are formed face-to-face. And, as with blended learning, we need to think about whether we are talking about community at the course level and/or at the program level.

Now it’s your turn…