Comparing Sense of Classroom Community and Learning Satisfaction in a Virtual World Learning Environment

Research in online education has demonstrated that sense of classroom community is an important factor in learning. This study extends the research to the new learning environment of virtual worlds and compares classroom community and learning satisfaction with different learning tasks in two distance learning courses. Students’ perceptions of classroom community and learning satisfaction were measured. Nonparametric independent samples test was conducted to test whether perceived classroom community and learning satisfaction differed with different learning tasks in these two courses. Our findings indicated that a significant relationship was found between students’ sense of classroom community and learning satisfaction but no significant differences of the two constructs were found with different learning tasks in two courses.