The Relationships among Graduate Students’ Sense of Community, their Perceived Learning, and Actual Learning

This article reports findings from a quantitative study which investigated sense of community, perceived learning, and actual learning among 112 graduate-level education students. The researchers employed correlational analysis to examine relationships among two types of classroom community (social community and learning community), three types of perceived learning (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor learning), and actual learning as measured by course grades. Results indicate that a higher sense of community among students correlates with a higher perception of their learning. The results also indicate that perceptions of learning are not necessarily correlated with students’ actual learning. Implications for faculty and recommendations for further research are included.