Communities of practice in academia

Nistor, Nicolae und Fischer, Frank (2012): Communities of practice in academia. Testing a quantitative model. In: Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, Bd. 1, Nr. 2: S. 114-126

Abstract

Up to now, the relationships among the fundamental notions of communities of practice (CoPs), i.e. knowledge, participation, identity, and artefact development have been based mainly on results from qualitative studies; they are not yet sufficiently based on quantitative evidence. Starting from a literature review, we formulate a quantitative, causal model of CoPs that describes these variables in the context of academic communities, and aim to validate this model in two academic CoPs with a total of N = 208 participants. A cluster analysis classifies the participants into clusters that are in line with the core-periphery structure known from previous qualitative studies. A regression analysis provides evidence for the hypothesized model on the basis of quantitative data. Suggested directions for future research are to focus on factors that determine CoP participants’ contributions to artefact development and on approaches to automated monitoring of virtual CoPs.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Publikationsform: Postprint
• Keywords: Communities of practice; Participation; Quantitative research; Workplace learning; University staff
• Fakultät: Psychologie und Pädagogik > Department Psychologie > Empirische Pädagogik und Pädagogische Psychologie
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 150 Psychologie ; 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 370 Bildung und Erziehung
• ISSN: 2210-6561
• Sprache: Englisch

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