Enhancing the Sense of Community Through Interaction in a Global Online Course

Tuulikki Keskitalo

doi:10.11114/jets.v9i2.5144

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate what types of interactions promote students’ sense of community in a global online course. This design-based research study was aimed at finding out practical principles to help students develop a sense of community and have a meaningful learning experience. A total of 82 students participated in the study. Data were collected and analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods during three design-based research cycles. These analyses produced six qualitatively different categories that were completed with questionnaire data. To meet the goals of the design-based research, this study produced an online higher education course and design principles, as well as deepened our theoretical understanding of the sense of community in online learning.

Highlights

Online learning has become very popular in the last two decades because of the development of technology and the pressure of educational organisations to meet the needs of individual students and their life circumstances
The interaction and sense of community of students are known to be challenging for online courses because of the lack of a natural sense of social presence (e.g. Oliphant & Branch-Mueller, 2016; Rovai, 2002a; Sung & Mayer, 2012)
The lack of social presence affects the interaction and sense of community of students in online learning environments, which in turn has an impact on the dropout rates in online courses (e.g. Luo, Zhang, & Qi, 2017; Moore, 2014), and it may affect their learning achievements (Rovai, 2002a)

Summary

Introduction

Online learning has become very popular in the last two decades because of the development of technology and the pressure of educational organisations to meet the needs of individual students and their life circumstances. The interaction and sense of community of students are known to be challenging for online courses because of the lack of a natural sense of social presence The lack of social presence affects the interaction and sense of community of students in online learning environments, which in turn has an impact on the dropout rates in online courses A course is presented, which was attended by students from different parts of the country, and the instructor was based on a different continent. This set-up complicated the mode of conducting the course because of the time difference, for example. Because of the challenges involved in online courses and the knowledge that the sense of community and interaction are often considered challenging for online courses; special emphasis was put on these characteristics when planning the course

Objectives

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Discussion

Conclusion