Graduate Students' Communication Practices and Perceived Sense of Community

This study explores the relationship between graduate students' communication practices and their perceived sense of program-level community within a graduate program. The program under study here consists of both traditional on-campus students, as well as students who take classes via a distributedlearning model. This particular program has made a concerted effort to improve its distance education offerings, and to improve information provision on its website to improve the students' sense of community within the program. Self-reported data were collected and analyzed from students (both on-campus and off-campus) enrolled in the graduate program at a midsized Southeastern public university. This study contributes to the body of empirical literature on distance education by providing evidence regarding the relationship between student communication practices and students' perceived sense of community within a distance education program.Given the graduate program's efforts to improve information provision on its programs' website, our interest in examining the data on this program is to analyze communication behaviors, specifically information seeking, and how these information seeking behaviors relate to the students' perceptions of sense of community within the distance education program (hereafter “perceived sense of program community”). We analyze information seeking behaviors because it has been established that, in uncertain environments such as a distance education environment, many individuals use information seeking as a useful strategy for negotiating such an environment (Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison & Vancouver, 2000). We then relate the information seeking practices of distance education students to the students' perceived sense of community within the distance education pro• Julie Reinhart, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, 3700 West 103rd Street, Chicago, IL 60655. Telephone: (773) 341-5030. E-mail: jreinhart@sxu.edu gram. We examine perceived sense of program community because of the well-documented empirical evidence that students who have a greater sense of community tend to have an improved educational experience within the distance education courses, and the improved educational experience has the potential to improve retention (Hara & Kling, 2000; McCarthy, Pretty, & Cantano, 1990; Rovai, 2002).The contemporary distance education literature, discussed in what follows, suggests that carefully-designed courses offered via distance education can be as effective as, or in some cases more effective than, those offered in a more traditional education setting (Overbaaugh & Lin, 2006; Hill, Raven, & Han, 2002; Karatas & Simsek, 2009). Our study goes one step further and investigates an entire program that is offered via distance education. While the field of distance education has established a great deal with regard to what is necessary to create and implement effective distance education courses, there is little empirical evidence as to what is required to create and implement an effective distance education program. In other words, the distance education field has empirically established what is necessary to create an effective distance education course. However, in the empirical literature it is still unresolved as to exactly what is required to assure that students continue taking distance education courses and complete a program. We contribute to the distance education literature by empirically establishing the relationship between the student's communication behaviors and the student's sense of program community.The literature review discusses, persistence/burnout in distance education courses, sense of community as it relates to distance education courses, and distance education programs. While the literature review places our study in context, it is important to emphasize our focus on the program level, this program-level focus is an important innovation relative to the empirical distance education literature. The literature review discusses communication practices, and presents important information seeking models, and sources of information.We focus our attention here upon persistence in distance education programs. Persistence here refers to “a college student's academic continuation behavior that leads to successful program completion” (Rovai, Wighting, & Liu, 2005, p. 362). The literature suggests that “students' strong feelings of social community with other students, faculty, and staff, throughout the school setting can produce positive outcomes” (Rovai et al., 2005, p. 372). Retention in distance education is an important issue in the academy, especially given the large number of institutions offering distance education programs. One report stated that 32% of all 2- and 4-year institutions offer college-level degree, or certificate, programs entirely via distance education (Parsad & Lewis, 2008). Clearly, the more programs that are offered completely via distance education, the more important retention becomes across higher education. The sheer scale of distance education programs, and their integral role across the academy motivate, in part, our investigation of perceived sense of program community.The perception that student retention in distance education classes has the potential to be improved if students within such courses experience a greater sense of community is well documented (Hara & Kling, 2000; McCarthy et al., 1990; Rovai, 2002). Rovai (2002) found a positive, significant relationship between the distance learners' sense of classroom community and students' perceived sense of cognitive learning. It is reasonable to assume that students are less likely to quit their program of study if they perceive that they are learning. While another study found that sense of community in an online class was significantly related to student satisfaction, they did not find that it was significantly related to retention (Drouin, 2008). Clearly, more research needs to be done to understand the relationship between sense of community and student retention.While the field has furthered our understanding of what is required to help students complete individual distance education courses, our study contributes to the body of research in distance education that examines what programs can do to help students successfully complete all courses within the program. We investigate communication practices and perceived sense of program community, which is one piece of the program retention puzzle.We draw upon a landmark study by McCarthy et al. (1990) that investigated burnout in university students. They found a positive relationship between the student's levels of perceived sense of community and their levels of being “burned out.” Additionally, they found that burnout was also related to academic performance. McCarthy et al.'s (1990) research suggests that universities need to consider more than just academics when it comes to the university students' experiences; physical, social and organizational structure that affect students' experiences also need to be considered. McCarthy et al.'s research is related to our study in that it looks at the students' sense of community within their entire collegiate program, not simply one class.Definition. Sense of community is an amorphous concept, to be sure, yet a widely accepted definition of “sense of community” is “a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another, and to the group, and a shared faith that members' needs will be met through their commitment to be together” (McMillian & Chavis, 1986, p. 9). We use the McMillian and Chavis (1986) definition.Community Within the Classroom. Many comparative studies have tested for differences in the perceived sense of community across two or three different types of courses. Rovai and Jordan (2004) compared the perceived sense of community in blended distance education courses, to that perceived in exclusively online courses, and to that perceived in traditional, exclusively on-campus, courses. Rovai and Jordan conclude that students in the blended courses have a stronger sense of community than do students in the other two types of courses.When comparing entirely online courses to entirely on-campus courses, Rovai et al. (2005) report that:Furthermore, the results of the Bernard et al. (2004), meta analysis corroborate the Rovai et al. (2005) that online students' experience a sense of Bernard et al. (2004) report a positive and significant retention in of classroom online In and found in sense of community when comparing online students with their of community in distance education programs is an important that some between exclusively on-campus, and exclusively online courses. or not it is still an unresolved in the empirical in differences between the online the classroom environment, established by Rovai et al. and et al. 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