A sense of community in distance education: A tribal college students' perspective

A sense of community, connectedness, and positive learning experiences are important to promoting student success in distance education. Therefore this study sought to understand tribal college students' perceptions of sense of community, connectedness, and learning experiences in tribal college distance education courses. The study's literature review provides insights on tribal colleges, distance education, sense of community, connectedness and learning experiences. The current study utilized the survey research method through a directly administered structured questionnaire developed by Rovai. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were utilized to analyze the data collected from the survey responses. Participants in this study included American Indian tribal college students that were 18 years and older and enrolled in distance education courses at a tribal college. The study tested fifteen research hypotheses which analyzed the perceptions of sense of community, connectedness, and learning experiences in distance education courses and various types of distance education delivery modalities. ANOVAs and t-tests were used to test the hypotheses.;The statistical analyses found no significance for all research hypotheses except two hypotheses. The two research hypotheses with statistical significance were the hypotheses that examined the on and off campus tribal college students' perceptions of sense of community and learning experiences. The on-campus tribal college students perceived a greater sense of community and learning experiences compared to off-campus tribal college students enrolled in distance education courses. The greater perceptions of sense of community and learning experiences of on-campus tribal college students compared to off-campus tribal college students enrolled in distance education courses may be the result of face-to-face interaction, access to resources, and geographic location. This dissertation study discusses its findings and the way these results may assist tribal college administrators, faculty, and staff in developing distance education courses and providing support to American Indians enrolled in distance education at tribal colleges.