Formative Research on a Community of Practice

In 2022, to better understand how community members participate in the Playful Parenting CoP, FHI 360 developed a tool grounded in three core dimensions defined by Lave & Wenger (1998) as the building blocks for cultivating and evaluating CoPs. We distilled the dimensions as the following: connectedness, belonging, & learning. Given the multi-modal nature of the Playful Parenting CoP, the tool also looked at modality. 

With attention to participants' evolving perceptions of these dimensions, we surveyed community members and conducted interviews over the years to construct user personas of participants and define a set of design principles for managing communities of practice. Findings were disseminated at CIES 2022 and 2024, in an internal learning session with the LEGO Foundation, and via an evidence brief.