Sense of Community as Found in Three Institutions of Higher Education: A Metric for Assessment
Abstract: This presentation will summarize a body of research centering on the measurement of students’ sense of community within a variety of university learning environments. The findings of this research suggest that this concept of “connectedness” serves as an effective indicator of student satisfaction with their learning experience—students who are made to feel a part of a community are more satisfied with the quality of their education. This most recent research measured sense of community among students who were enrolled in one of three types of institutions of higher education: private and religiously affiliated, public, and public with union-based staffing. The results demonstrated that the institutional type has a bearing on students’ sense of connectedness to other students and to faculty and that students have varying feelings of allegiance to their home insitituion.
Presider: Jashoda Bothra, Cisco Systems Inc.