The learning community (LC) is one of affecting models for enhancing students’ self- directed learning and prompting to their performance. To verify the argument, this study launched an experiment to determine the effect of learning community on students’ self-directed learning and leaning performance. We selected 212 college students in the freshman economics course as our target group with controlling the possible variations during the experiment. The self-directed learning was surveyed by using a revised Learning Preference Assessment (LPA), and the treatment effects have been assessed with the difference estimation. The result reveals that well managed learning community can be used to provoke the students’ attitude of self-directed learning. The designed course for economics provides an example which will enrich students’ learning performance up to around 8% of their grades. For future prospect, the related studies may design flipped courses on web with the idea of learning community to enhancing students’ learning motivation and effect.
11th International Conference on Innovative Computing, Information and Control2016 Proceedings