Developing a Scale for the Sense of Community in Online Learning: A Validity and Reliability Study

This study aims to develop a measuring instrument for determining the sense of community in online learning. The group of subjects included 245 students who studied in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology in 2011-2012 academic year and participated in an online learning community. Explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses were carried out on the acquired data. As a result of the explanatory factor analysis, a 28-item measuring instrument with 3 factors was produced; the total variance that the factors explained regarding the scale was 42.65%. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency, which was calculated depending on the item analysis for the reliability of the scale, was found to be 0.88 for the whole factor; the reliability coefficient for the test-retest measures of the scale was found to be 0.84. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the scale model was theoretically and statistically appropriate. The acquired values showed that the psychometric characteristics of the scale were within acceptable limits.