Students’ Identities and its Relationships with their Engagement in an Online Learning Community

Fariza Khalid

doi:10.3991/ijet.v14i05.8196

Abstract

Abstract—Communities of practice’ approaches have been proven to be effective in enhancing students’ learning as well as helping them to cultivate inter-personal skills, especially within the higher education system. An important development in relation to participation in communities of practice is members’ identities. This study was conducted with the aim of understanding students’ identities in relation to their participation in an online community and how the dimensions of their identities correlated to each other. The research par-ticipants were 123 first-year students who were involved in collaborative sharing activities via an online community, using Weebly. Data was collected using a set of questionnaires that discussed four main dimen-sions of identities: personal, professional, as learners, and as members of communities. Data was analysed using SPSS version 22. The overall findings offer a detailed description of students’ identities. A high posi-tive correlation was found between students’ prior knowledge and their motivation, commitment and beliefs with regard to the benefits of online communities. The only dimension of students’ identities that lacked cor-relation with other dimensions was students’ openness. The findings highlight the importance of understand-ing different aspects of identities and how this helps to enhance engagement in online communities. The findings are significant in terms of establishing a deeper understanding on learning process within a social learning theory.

Highlights

In line with the existence of Internet connections and various Learning Management Systems (LMS) available today, online collaborative sharing activities are considered an important activity to expand students’ knowledge and understanding
Sharing activities via online communities allow greater flexibility than traditional, faceto-face mentoring; they save users’ time as the users do not have to travel, but can instead work from their classrooms or at home and at their own pace [4], [5]. [6] suggest that discussions in online communities allow for in-depth meaning-making and help construct students’ understanding. This is caused by the fact that in face-to-face discussions, students do not have enough time to think before they give their responses, but in contrast, in online discussions, students have ample time to read, think about and reply to the discussions
The findings show that the students were open towards receiving any comments from other members of their online community

Summary

Introduction

In line with the existence of Internet connections and various Learning Management Systems (LMS) available today, online collaborative sharing activities are considered an important activity to expand students’ knowledge and understanding. An online learning community can be built through interaction among the members, i.e. through sharing thoughts, asking questions and providing feedback [3]. [6] suggest that discussions in online communities allow for in-depth meaning-making and help construct students’ understanding. This is caused by the fact that in face-to-face discussions, students do not have enough time to think before they give their responses, but in contrast, in online discussions, students have ample time to read, think about and reply to the discussions. Discussions with online community members allow the development of open and supportive relationships and friendships, and greater cohesiveness within the learning group [7]. If the relationships in online communities are developed informally, this leads to greater engagement than through the establishment of more formal relationships [8]

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Methods

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Conclusion