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ERIC Number: EJ1436346
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Oct
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1059-0145
EISSN: EISSN-1573-1839
Collections of Practice as High-Level Activity in a Digital Interest-Based Science Community
Lisa Lundgren; Kent J. Crippen
Journal of Science Education and Technology, v33 n5 p647-667 2024
The theoretical framework of communities of practice (CoP) is often used for framing research into online communities. However, there is an absence of measures and empirical work that evaluates knowledge-sharing within such communities. This represents a substantial gap in our understanding of informal learning for diverse people and in the case of communities that support participation in science, a potential loss of capacity for an enterprise that serves a critical function for society. Our objective is to operationalize "practice" within a designed online, scientific community and evaluate these behaviors as representative of seven theorized high-level groups. For this case study, content and social network analysis were applied to forums (n = 1858), activity posts (n = 1300), and direct messages (n = 667). Content analysis showed that community members most often used practices that were coded as social and not domain-specific. Differences existed in the ways that forums, messages, and activity posts were used as well as between education and outreach members and members of the public and scientists. Social network analysis revealed two domain-specific practices were central to the knowledge-sharing discourse. The seven theorized high-level groups were reduced to three. We provide a new empirically-based framework for use in identifying practices within the digital spaces as well as recommendations for designing online science communities that emphasize knowledge creation.
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2123/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Science Foundation (NSF), Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1322725