WWW/Internet - Portal do Software Público Brasileiro

IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010students in institutional life. Consequently, there is a concern among some educators that distance educationdoes not promote community.The rationale was that a combination of face-to-face and online learning environments provides a greaterrange of opportunities for students to interact with each other and with their professor. These interactionsshould result in increased socialization, a stronger sense of being connected to each other, and increasedconstruction of knowledge through discourse, thus providing stronger feelings that educational goals werebeing satisfied by community membership (Rovai & Jordan, 2004).According to McMillan and Chavis (1986) there are 4 basic components of community feeling. The firstcomponent is the membership and defined as sense of belonging. The second component, influence meansmaking a difference to the group and group mattering to its members. Reinforcement, the third component, isintegration and fulfillment the needs. In another expression reinforcement is meeting the needs of groupmembers by resources. The fourth component, shared emotional connection, the commitment and belief thatmembers have shared and will share history, common places, time together, and similar experiences.Rovai (2001) defined the components of classroom community feeling based on these four componentswhich were constituted by McMillan and Chavis. These components are spirit, trust, interaction, andlearning.Spirit: The first component, spirit, denotes recognition of membership in a community and the feelings offriendship, cohesion, and bonding that develop among learners as they enjoy one another and look forward totime spent together (Rovai, 2001).Trust: The second of classroom community components. Trust is the feeling that the community can betrusted and feedback will be forthcoming and constructive. When people are accepted as part of a nourishinglearning community, they feel safe and trust the community. With safety and trust comes the willingness ofcommunity members to speak openly. This candor is important to a learning community because with trustcomes the likelihood that members will expose gaps in their learning and feel that other members of thecommunity will respond in supportive ways (Rovai, 2001).Influence: A feeling that closeness and mutual benefit result between individuals. Interaction could beboth task driven and socio-emotional. Task-driven interaction is directed toward the completion of assignedtasks while socio-emotional interaction is directed toward relationships among learners. There are researchesabout importance about effective interaction for effective learning. For this reason interaction is an importantfactor that supports either the community-building process or learning (Rovai, 2001).Learning: A feeling that knowledge and meaning are actively constructed within the community, that thecommunity enhances the acquisition of knowledge and understanding. For community to flourish, membersmust not only identify with the group but must also internalize at least partial acceptance of the group’spurpose and values (Rovai, 2001).Rovai and Jordan (2004b) have aimed to analyzing the relationship between traditional, blended and fullyonline higher education environments and community feeling. Sample group of the research was taken fromwho is master student and teachers in primary schools and also registered 24 persons traditional, 23 personsblended and 21 persons online education program. According to the results blended course has been a higherand significant relationship on connectedness than either the traditional or online courses with a larger effectsize.As there are many factors influencing the quality of interaction, this situation influences the communityfeeling in distance education. In the research of Rovai (2002b) about the factors influencing the communityfeeling, 7 components were defined as transactional distance, social presence, social equality, small groupactivities, group facilitation, teaching style and learning stage, and community size.The aim of this study is to analyze community feelings of students in terms of age, gender, access tocomputer, access to Internet and period of computer usage in a distance education program which isconfigured on a blended learning model.263