Aggregated Approaches to Identifying

Community and its Contituent Elements in

Formal Blended Learning Environments

Richard A. Schwier
Ben K. Daniel
Virtual Community Research Laboratory
University of Saskatchewan

Based on: Schwier, R.A., & Daniel, B.K. (2007). Did we become a community?
Multiple methods for identifying community and its constituent elements in formal
online learning environments. In N. Lambropoulos, & P. Zaphiris (Eds.), User-
evaluation and online communities (pp. 29-53). Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.

AECT 2006 Dallas

 Central Concerns
• Focus of research
• Atomized view of communities
• Generation of models
• Using research to inform online
learning environments

AECT 2006 Dallas

 Community

Modeling Constituents

Comparison

AECT 2006 Dallas

AECT 2006 Dallas
 Sense of Community
• Chavis’ “Sense of Community Index”
• Rovai & Jordan’s “Classroom
Community Scale”
– Connectedness
– Learning

• Pre-post design (t-Test, p<.005)

AECT 2006 Dallas

 Interaction Analysis
• Fahy, Crawford & Ally (TAT)
• Included only peripheral interactions
• Density
– the ratio of the actual number of connections observed,
to the total potential number of possible connections

2a/N(N-1) = 2(122)/13(12) = .78

AECT 2006 Dallas

 Interaction analysis
• Intensity
– “levels of participation," or the degree to which
the number of postings observed in a group
exceed the number of required postings

– 858 actual/490 required = 1.75

AECT 2006 Dallas

 Reciprocity ratio
the parity of communication among participants

AECT 2006 Dallas

Reciprocity

AECT 2006 Dallas

Characteristics of Community
• Transcript analysis
• Interviews
• Focus groups

AECT 2006 Dallas

 Characteristics
• Awareness • Participation
• Social protocols • Trust
• Historicity • Future orientation
• Identity • Technology
• Mutuality • Learning
• Plurality • Reflection
• Autonomy • Intensity

AECT 2006 Dallas

Comparison of characteristics
• Thurstone analysis

AECT 2006 Dallas

Thurstone Scale
 Modeling
Bayesian Belief Network

AECT 2006 Dallas

 Conclusions
• Cycle of analysis is more important than
specific tools used
• Mixed methods seems reasonable, and
worked well in practice
• Baseline data is needed to situate findings
• Modeling is an act of systematic speculation
influenced by data (not limited by data)

AECT 2006 Dallas