Sense of community in online education

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if students develop a sense of community in online courses in a U.S. southwest university. The theory tells us sense of community exists in online education and sense of community could differ by students’ attributes such as gender and the colleges students attend. Using the survey research, we show that students’ sense of community in online courses did not differ significantly by gender or by college. However, students’ sense of community and satisfaction had strong positive correlation.