Sense of Community Within a Fully Online Program

This mixed-method study investigates distance education students’ desire to interact and the support for community building available to them at a department-wide level in a graduate-level instructional systems technology program. Distance education students’ interactions are compared to those of the department's residential students. A modified version of Rovai's Classroom Community Scale (Rovai, 2002) for measuring program-level sense of community is piloted. Levels of student interactions with others in the department are compared to students’ reported satisfaction with courses and the program as a whole. Student suggestions for changes or additional opportunities for interactions within the program are discussed.