The Interplay Between Students’ Usage of Pronouns and Community Levels in Online Courses

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between sense of community and pronoun usage in online courses that utilized computer mediated communication (CMC) to enable discussion. Using Rovai’s (2002) Classroom Community Scale (CCS), we compared pronoun use in three High CCS courses to that in three Low CCS courses. Results revealed students in High CCS courses used proportionally more pronouns, made proportionally more self-references, and used a higher proportion of collective pronouns. Instructors from High CCS courses encouraged students to share personal perspectives, which appears to have promoted a greater sense of connectivity amongst learners. This behaviour explains the differences in pronoun usage and suggests that pronoun-based analytics may be a useful indicator of students’ sense of community.