Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The relationship of different learning environments (traditional versus constructivist/collaborative) to students' psychological sense of community in the classroom was examined in this study. In addition to students' sense of community, students' social skills and social behavior were also examined. Measures of students' psychological sense of community in the classroom, social problem-solving skills, one's own social behavior, and social behavior of the class were collected. Results from this study suggest that constructivist/collaborative learning environments support students' psychological sense of community in the classroom and social problem-solving skills better than traditional learning environments, and that psychological sense of community in the classroom is an important factor in students' social skills and social behavior in the classroom setting.