New study looks at sense of community in classroom vs blended vs fully online

This study provides an actual research study to see what mode creates the best sense of community. One can guess that the extremes — classroom and fully online — fall short of a blended approach.

From the August 2004 International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, “Blended Learning and Sense of Community: A Comparative Analysis with Traditional and Fully Online Graduate Courses .” I find the introduction and discussion of the most interest. I tend to glaze over during the statistical details. Though I was a mathematician, stats was never my area of interest.

This article is a nice partner to the forthcoming eteam report I was a part of this summer. The blended model can take the strengths of both mediums and avoid the shortcomings — assuming you design the course well. I like their closing sentence – “Graham B. Spanier, president of The Pennsylvania State University, referred to this convergence of online and traditional instruction as the single-greatest unrecognized trend in higher education today (Young, 2002).”