Many Destinations, Many Pathways: A Quantitative Analysis of Legitimate Peripheral Participation in Scratch

TL;DR

This study quantitatively analyzes how different forms of legitimate peripheral participation in the Scratch online community support three key informal learning goals: skills, identity, and community values.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence linking specific participation types to learning outcomes in online informal communities, guided by Wenger's communities of practice theory.

Findings

Contribution to core tasks correlates with skill development.

Social bonding enhances community identity.

Feedback exchange supports learning of community values.

Abstract

Although informal online learning communities have proliferated over the last two decades, a fundamental question remains: What are the users of these communities expected to learn? Guided by the work of Etienne Wenger on communities of practice, we identify three distinct types of learning goals common to online informal learning communities: the development of domain skills, the development of identity as a community member, and the development of community-specific values and practices. Given these goals, what is the best way to support learning? Drawing from previous research in social computing, we ask how different types of legitimate peripheral participation by newcomers-contribution to core tasks, engagement with practice proxies, social bonding, and feedback exchange-may be associated with these three learning goals. Using data from the Scratch online community, we conduct a quantitative analysis to explore these questions. Our study contributes both theoretical insights and empirical evidence on how different types of learning occur in informal online environments.