Last week I said that quality of learning is one benefit of a learning community that “works.”  Another benefit is generally the enhanced level of commitment to the learning experience that each student expresses.  And that is one of the best guarantees a program can use to predict student retention. 
     Intuitively, we know this to be true, but is there any evidence?  I have not personally done formal studies, but many have.  In a review of studies about retention in online courses, Michael Herbert, PhD,  found three important variables relating to online instruction:  personal, institutional, and circumstantial.  Only one of those variables is under the control of the entity providing the online educational experience—the institutional.  And what are the important factors for an institution to consider in creating a course that will increase student retention?
     Herbert found that the literature reported that one “critical issue in retention in online courses is related to a student’s sense of belonging (Braxton, et. al.1997).”

Sense of belonging

     In addition, the course and the instructor need to create a “safe and comfortable” course environment.  Students need to be able to communicate with the instructor and fellow students without intimidation or the feeling that their opinion does not matter.  They need to feel connected both to their instructor and to fellow classmates.  “Affiliation is key to the development of a learning community” (Palloff & Pratt, 2001, p. 47). 
     Other factors that dilute affiliation with the learning cohort, Herbert reports, are “poorly designed courses, and substandard or inexperienced instructors.” Frankola (2001)
     I can certainly provide some anecdotal evidence that supports these findings. I transcribed an interview last year with a college administrator.  He wasn’t being interviewed about his own experience as a student in an online PhD program, but that was what he wanted to talk about.  He was impressed by the commitment that students in his cohort had to the program and to one another.  His comparison was to students in the program his college administered.  He had offered his students in this face-to-face academic program a social evening at a local country club as a “cohort building” event—good food, music, drinks.  Only about half of the students bothered to RSVP, he said, and less than half of those bothered to show up.  He compared that to someone in his own online cohort missing one of the discussions—it would never happen, he insisted, without a good reason and lots of advance notice.  More important to his sense of community was that he wanted to know what other students in his cohort thought about the material and what they thought about his responses and entries.  He was describing “affiliation.”  It had been created by the course design, by the instructor’s interaction with each of the students, and the requirement that they dialogue with one another.  What began as a requirement of the course, obviously became something that was extremely meaningful to each of those students. 
     I am still working on the specific design mechanisms that can create that level of commitment.  I wonder what particular devices have worked for you?  Let me know.  And check back next week when I hope to have more of my course created and I will share with you how I hope to build a learning community.

 Works Cited:
Braxton, J., Shaw Sullivan, A. V., & Johnson, Jr., R. M. (1997). Appraising Tinto’s theory of college student departure. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, Vol. 12. New York : Agathon Press.
Frankola, K. (2001). Why online learners drop out. Workforce, 80 (10), 53-59.
Herbert, M. (2006). Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, Volume IX, Number IV, Winter.
Palloff, R., & Pratt, K. (2001). Lessons from the cyberspace classroom (p. 47). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.