Communities of practice in academia: Testing a quantitative model

Abstract

Up to now, the relationships among the fundamental notions of communities of practice (CoPs), i.e. knowledge, participation, identity, and artifact 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 artifact development and on approaches to automated monitoring of virtual CoPs.

Introduction

Communities of practice (CoPs) are groups of people sharing goals, activities, and experiences in the context of a given practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991, Wenger, 1999). Participation in CoPs is assumed to lead to the accumulation of experience, stimulation of the social construction of knowledge, and the development of expertise (Bereiter, 2002, Boylan, 2010, Engeström and Sannino, 2010, Fuller et al., 2007, Lave and Wenger, 1991, Paavola et al., 2004, Tobbell et al., 2010, Wenger, 1999). In contrast to the norm for schools, observable teaching (e.g., lecturing) in CoPs is rare. Nevertheless, the basic phenomenon in CoPs appears to be learning, and the potential curriculum is defined by the community practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 92).

The theory of situated learning is primarily founded on examples that best serve to illustrate the meaning of the notions of community and practice. A prominent example is that of Mayan midwives from Yucatan, who allow younger women to observe their activities when they are attending a laboring mother (Jordan, 1989, Lave and Wenger, 1991). In a further example, teachers, together with pupils and pupils' parents, carry out the daily activities of a Canadian village school and at the same time prevent the school from being closed due to organizational difficulties (Roth & Lee, 2006). Of a similar nature – and of particular relevance for this study – are the numerous communities founded in schools (e.g., Bonsen & Rolff, 2006), universities (e.g., Brown, 2001, Rovai, 2002, Thompson and MacDonald, 2005, Tobbell et al., 2010, Visscher and Witziers, 2004) and research institutions (Kienle & Wessner, 2006). By examining these examples, we observe that CoP literature is based mainly on qualitative research, with few quantitative studies about learning and development in this context (e.g., Kienle and Wessner, 2006, Stewart, 2010, Visscher and Witziers, 2004). In particular, the relationships among the fundamental notions of CoPs are mainly based on qualitative studies and not sufficiently backed up with quantitative evidence. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose a quantitative model of CoPs that describes the relationships among the main notions (knowledge and experience, participation, expert status, and cultural artifact development). We begin with an examination of research literature to define the central variables and to integrate them into a causal model. Then we verify this model empirically in the context of academic CoPs.