An Empirical Study on Influencing Factors of Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Learning Community

Abstract

Increasing organizations and educational institutions have implemented virtual learning communities to encourage knowledge sharing. Virtual Learning Community was able to serve the learning goals of community members by relying on the knowledge sharing. In this paper, some individual factors and environmental factors were used to study the knowledge sharing among community members. In virtual learning community, the sense of community and trust are important indicators for the development of community, and the members of mature community tend to have strong a sense of community and trust. Ten hypothesizes and the way of questionnaire survey were presented to explore the impact of social interaction, perceptual learning, trust, a sense of community and self-efficacy for knowledge sharing among members in community. The empirical results show that social interaction behavior between members has a significant role in promoting trust and a sense of belonging, and trust, a sense of community and a sense of self-efficacy among members has a significant effect to the knowledge sharing in virtual learning community, while a sense of self-efficacy among members in the virtual learning community is largely affected by the learning community perception.

Toward a framework for strengthening participants' self-efficacy in online education

“…The proposed framework presumes that verbal persuasion builds self-efficacy when a respective environment is encouraging and praising individuals with feedbacks for their competence to improve their effectiveness. Empirical evidence behind this proposition is found in a series of studies taken up in this document analysis like Wang and Wu (2008), Chu (2010), Wang et al (2013), Chiu and Tsai (2014), Tang et al (2014), Jan (2015), Lin et al (2015), Shen (2015), Liou et al (2016) and Hong et al (2017), etc. Positive self-talks, informal communications, human relationships, etc.…”

“…The studies (e.g. Lim et al, 2016;Shen, 2015;Kuo et al, 2014;Chiu and Tsai, 2014;Joo et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2012;Chu, 2010;Song et al, 2011) also found almost in the same tune that self-efficacy has a deep impact on the participants' personal innovativeness, communication climate, holding strong perception toward online infrastructure, motivation, asynchronous communication, learner-learner communication or learner-teachers' communication and knowledge sharing in online mode. Hence, policies to strengthen self-efficacy of the participants could prove effective in the Asian online education context.…”

“…Kuo et al (2014) suggest that the ability to use the Internet has a positive effect, which is further supported by Taipjutorus (2014). Lin et al (2008) found social presence as a strong predictor of self-efficacy, while Shen (2015) found the trust between participants as a strong predictor, and Lim et al (2016) found learner-learner interaction and system quality was related to learners' computer self-efficacy. Among other factors influencing selfefficacy for online education are attitude and digital literacy (Prior et al, 2016), perceived enjoyment (Reychav et al, 2016), community involvement (Vayre and Vonthron, 2016), personal innovativeness (Kim and Park, 2017) and particular education system of the country (Gerick et al, 2017).…”

“…The studies of Liou et al (2016) and Wang and Wu (2008) have reported the benefits of feedback and incentive are important factors influencing self-efficacy in online education to find out whether they attain their goals in learning. Online communication was claimed as an important factor influencing self-efficacy in online education, as stated in studies of Lim et al (2016), Cho and Cho (2017), Lin et al (2015), Reychav et al (2016), Shen (2015) and Vayre and Vonthron (2016). Considering the significance of self-efficacy in online education, there is a need to identify and understand these factors influencing participants' self-efficacy.…”

“…Females had a higher mean ASE than males Wang et al (2015) Understanding the continuance use of social network sites: a computer selfefficacy perspective Found that general computer self-efficacy (CSE) affects continuance intention through both cognition and affection, specific CSE mainly affects continuance intention through cognition Lin et al (2015) Revalidate forms of presence in training effectiveness: Mediating effect of Self-Efficacy Found social presence was a stronger predictor of self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a full mediator between social presence and cognitive presence Shen (2015) An Empirical Study on Influencing Factors of Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Learning Community Found that the trust between members had a significant positive effect on selfefficacy of knowledge-sharing. Effect of perceptual learning on self-efficacy of knowledge-sharing was significant Lim et al (2016) Structural relationships of environments, Individuals, and learning outcomes in Korean online university settings…”