Creating Community in the Technical Communication Classroom

Abstract

A listserv can help to create a sense of community in a technical communication classroom. After reviewing relevant literature from Composition Studies, the author introduces the Psychological Sense of Community concept, which provides a research tool to direct a quantitative evaluation of the sense of community in four technical communication classes, two that use a listserv and two that do not. The author concludes that technical communication students would benefit from learning to become members of this type of discourse community because of its relevance to the working world.