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ISBN: 978-972-8939-25-0 © 2010 IADIS4. CONCLUSIONIt is important to develop community feeling in distance education in which students and teachers arephysically separated. In this study, community feelings of students who have enrolled in a distance educationprogram which is configured on a blended learning model, in online environments, were analyzed in terms ofdemographic variables such as age, gender, access to computer, access to Internet and period of computerusage. Results showed that while there was a significant difference in the community feelings of students interms of gender, access to computers and access to Internet, there was no significant difference in terms ofage and period of computer usage. This study has revealed out that males have a stronger community feelingthan females. However in contrast to this study; previous studies showed that females have a strongercommunity feeling than males (Rovai, 2002a; Rovai & Barnaum, 2003).The students who have regular access to computer and Internet were found to have stronger communityfeeling than others. In addition, students who use online communication tools found to feeling themselvesbelong to the program as they are in touch with friends and teachers by synchronous and asynchronous. Itwas determined that conversation and face to face interaction help community feeling development morethan electronic discussion boards. The students stated that discussion boards did not influence their feeling ofbelonging in the same rate when it is compared to the other tools (Lord & Lomicka, 2008).In a research Swan and Shih (2005) found that younger students were significantly more comfortable withonline discussion than older students. In contrast to this study, according to the analysis there is no differencein the community feeling development of different aged groups. This finding may show that older studentscould attend to the online communications and tend to be an active participant, too.In the same way, as there are no differences between who were using computer for a long time and shorttime, it shows that their adaptations’ to online communication technologies are effective.Further studies should analyze the effect of attending frequency to the face to face interactions oncommunity feeling.REFERENCESBrown, J. S. et al, 1996. Universities in the digital age. Change, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp 11–19.Ilgaz, H., 2008, Uzaktan eğitimde teknoloji kabulünün ve topluluk hissinin öğrenen memnuniyetine katkısı, Ms thesis,Hacettepe University, Turkiye.Lord, G. et al, 2008. Blended learning in teacher education: An investigation of classroom community across media.Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp 158-174.McMillan, D. W. et al, 1986. Sense of community: A definition and theory. Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 14,No. 1, pp 6-23.National Center for Education Statistics, Distance education at postsecondary education institutions: 1997-98. Availablefrom: . [26 June 2009].Rovai, A. P. et al, 2004a. The classroom and school community inventory: Development, refinement, and validation of aself-report measure for educational research. The Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp 263-280.Rovai, A. P. et al, 2004b. Blended Learning and Sense of Community: A comparative analysis with traditional and fullyonline graduate courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol. 5, No. 2.Rovai, A. P. et al, 2003. On-line course effectiveness: An analysis of student Interactions and Perceptions of Learning.Journal of Distance Education, Vol. 18, No 1, pp 57-73Rovai, A. P., 2002a. Sense of community, perceived cognitive learning, and persistence in asynchronous learningnetworks. The Internet and Higher Education, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp 319-332.Rovai, A.P., 2002b. Building Sense of Community at a Distance. The International Review of Research in Open andDistance Learning, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp 1-12.Rovai, A. P., 2001. Building Classroom Community at a Distance: A Case Study. Educational Technology Research andDevelopment, Vol. 49, No. 4, pp 33-48.Suhr, D.D. 2006. Exploratory or Confirmatory Factor Analysis. SAS Users Group International (SUGI) 31 Proceedings.San Francisco, USA.Swan, K. et al, 2005. On the Nature and Development of Social Presence in Online Course Discussions. Journal ofAsynchronous Learning Networks, Vol. 9, No. 3, pp 115-136.266