Abstract
The Sense of Community, as an important construct that supports students’ participation and deep learning, has two dimensions: Social Community and Learning Community. Peer feedback is an instructional strategy employed in higher education to encourage students to assume an active role in their learning activity. The present study investigates the association between the Sense of Community and peer feedback activity in a blended university course designed according to the Progressive Design Method. This method was developed using the Knowledge Building model and incorporates peer feedback on project activities. For 30 university students of a blended course the Sense of Community was measured with the Classroom Community Scale and messages concerning the peer feedback activity in the online environment were detected and analyzed through a content analysis. Then, with a correlational research design the association between the Sense of Community and peer feedback activity was investigated. Results show a statistically significant relationship between both students’ participation in online activities and the peer feedback activity with the Learning dimension of the Sense of Community. A positive relationship was found between the Learning dimension of the Sense of Community and the number of feedback messages that explained the positive aspects of the project. Also, the results demonstrate a positive relationship between the Social dimension of the Sense of Community and the number of feedback messages that offered proposals for improvement. This study and its results help to design blended university courses that promote an active role for the students and improve their Sense of Community.
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Acknowledgements
A first version of the present study, was presented at the 2020 Virtual Knowledge Building Institute “A Global Knowledge Building Design Experiment: Saving the Planet, Saving Lives”, November, 20–21, 2020, and published in the proceedings of the conference at https://ikit.org/summerinstitute2020. In the version published here we have carried out new analyses and found new results, which have led to further innovative theoretical and applicative contributions to the current scientific literature.
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a. The dataset analysed during the current study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. b. Students granted us their permission to use the collected data for research. We have taken steps to protect participants, ensuring that they were not disadvantaged for their participation. The students’ data have been anonymized replacing their names with numbers in the dataset. c. The authors have no relevant financial or non financial interests to disclose.
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Cacciamani, S., Perrucci, V., Khanlari, A. et al. Sense of community and peer feedback in a blended University Course. Educ Inf Technol 29, 5211–5223 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11982-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11982-4