  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.
