The Relationship Among Course Design, Sense of Community, and Adult Achievement in Web-Based Courses

This study investigated the relationships among course design, sense of community and final course grade of adult learners in web-based courses. The study also sought to the determine the relationships among several student entry characteristics, sense of community, and final course grade. The sample consisted of 88 graduate business students from a private not-for-profit university who were enrolled in a blended online course during a one year period. The study used a cross-sectional survey design to investigate the relationships among the variables. The analyses showed that although course design had a significant positive relationship with sense of community it was not the only predictor of sense of community for this group of participants. The results also showed that the best predictors of the final course grades for the participants were gender and marital status.