Sense of community research sneak peeks up

Over at senseofcommunityresearch.org I’ve been posting interesting snippets uncovered during the data analysis of my dissertation research. In it I look at sense of community in a mediated world by getting input from World of Warcraft players on four communities to which they belong.

So far you can see:

Participation by Invitation Source: In-game vs. Open Call

Player and Guild Missions in WoW

Gender in MMOGs

The overall topics addressed in the study are:

RQ1: Can a scale measuring the traditional four factors of sense of community (membership, influence, fulfillment of needs, and emotional connection) be used to measure sense of community in online communities?

RQ2: How do participants characterize sense of community online and offline?