MOOC Participants Research Articles

Examining learning engagement in MOOCs: a self-determination theoretical perspective using mixed method

MOOCs as a learning approach are gaining popularity, and helping learners and instructors understand how learning engagement is constructed in a MOOC context is of increasing importance. Although previous research has undoubtedly enriched our knowledge of MOOCs, our understanding of student engagement in the MOOC context is still limited. This study adopts a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach to examine student engagement in MOOCs from the self-determination theory (SDT) perspective. A total of 693 valid responses to a MOOC Engagement-Motivation scale were collected and 82 MOOC participants were interviewed. The results showed significant differences between the MOOC completers and non-completers with respect to the rank of motivators for enrolment and the rank of learning activities for participation. The association between perceived competence and emotional engagement was significantly higher in the MOOC completion group. The results of a multiple regression analysis indicated that the SDT model can significantly predict student engagement. Perceived competence registered the largest positive impact, and perceived relatedness had a slight negative impact on engagement. The three components of engagement can also predict learners’ perceived learning. Emotional engagement showed the largest positive impact. However, logistic regression analysis indicated that these components of engagement poorly predicted MOOC learners’ completion. Qualitative analyses of student interview data revealed three main factors that can promote learners’ SDT needs: active learning, course resources, and instructor accessibility. Implications of the findings can help MOOC designers and educators to better engage their participants.

How MOOCs Can Develop Teacher Cognition: The Case of in-Service English Language Teachers

Abstract Research reveals a rapid expansion of Open Educational Resources (OER) supporting global access to higher education for continued professional development (CPD) for in-service teachers. This offers interactive opportunities for participation and reflection to support the development of teacher cognition through a globally-oriented online community. This paper will indicate whether the OER MOOCs designed for CPD of in-service English language teachers (ELT) have a role in developing teacher cognition. It also examines the in-service teacher experience of MOOC participants and proposes that teacher cognition and evaluation of cognitive change remain central to understanding teachers’ experience of learning on MOOCs. Brookfield’s (1995) critical incident questionnaire (CIQ) captured the weekly experience of six in-service ELTs undertaking a CPD MOOC over four weeks. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics were applied to CIQ data to examine changes in participant cognition. Teachers reflected on how MOOC developed their own knowledge, their learners’ knowledge, and to a lesser extent, their colleagues’ knowledge. The findings cast new light on the influence of MOOC which primarily shows that in terms of their own knowledge, teachers have a strong tendency to view MOOC participation as a pathway to their own development.

Discovering the memory thief: MOOC participants’ personal experiences of dementia

Dementia is one of the greatest social issues of our time. There are brief explorations of experiences of dementia in the literature, however this study seeks to further explore the experiences of the general public in relation to dementia. This study aimed to characterise experiences of dementia in the general population.This characterisation was achieved by developing and opening a massive open online course on dementia, which collected information from participants who responded to the question “share your own personal experience of dementia”. This data was then analysed by two researchers using Framework Analysis.Four themes (the condition, caring, perception, and control) and indicative quotes are presented and discussed. Experiences of dementia are positive as well as negative. Findings update understanding of these experiences and demonstrate new insights.

What do participants think of today’s MOOCs: an updated look at the benefits and challenges of MOOCs designed for working professionals

Literature on MOOCs has shown that understanding learners’ perspectives in taking MOOCs is critical if a MOOC needs to be successful. Now that MOOCs have been in wide use, in this study we took an updated look at learners’ perspective of taking MOOCs designed for working professionals and course aspects that these MOOC participants found beneficial. General interest in the topic, personal growth and enrichment, relevance to job, and career change were the top reasons for working professionals to enroll in MOOCs. First-time MOOC takers were more likely to seek a certificate, while MOOC veterans may complete most assignments but did not seek for a certificate. Quality materials from a reputable provider remains an important reason for working professionals to enroll in a MOOC. Offering meaningful ways for MOOC participants to interact with instructors and with each other calls for innovative designs than the current discussion forums in a learning management system can offer. This remains to be a big challenge for MOOC designers.

Participants and completers in programming MOOCs

There are millions of MOOC participants who vary in gender, age, educational level, employment status, intentions, etc. Although MOOC participants’ characteristics have been studied, there is still a lack of knowledge of the divergence between the participants and completers of MOOCs with different levels of difficulty. The term ‘level of difficulty’ as used in this paper encompasses, besides the difficulty of covered topics, the variety of supportive teaching methods and different course durations. The aim of this study was to determine the demographic and social background characteristics of participants and completers in three programming MOOCs with different difficulty levels. It was found that the difficulty of a topic is related to gender, age and educational level distribution in MOOCs. According to our results, previous experience in the topic and the difficulty level of the MOOC influence completion. However, our results were less clear-cut regarding the correlation of age, education and employment status with difficulty level of MOOC. The results can be useful for MOOC instructors in supporting different participant groups, for example, by allowing more flexibility for specific participant groups.

The New Facilitators’ Strategies in Managing Online Discussion of the Second IMOOC

The second Indonesian Massive Open Online Course are the collaboration between Regional English Language Office (RELO) and the Embassy of United States of America in Jakarta introducing the use of technology for autonomous learning as the new insight for the participants that focuses on recruiting pre-service English teachers, English Teachers (Elementary school, junior high school, or senior high school teachers), English lecturers in the university around Indonesia. The purpose of this research was to describe qualitatively the second MOOC new facilitators’ strategies in managing online discussion and whether they were affected by their own facilitators’ strategies when they joined as the participants of the first Indonesian MOOC. There were eight new facilitators who came from different regions in Indonesia such as Rembang, Salatiga, Surabaya, Solo, Semarang, Malang, and Banjarmasin. The data were collected through a Questionnaire. The results of this research shown that there are various strategies that have been applied by the new facilitators including design questions that particularly get on-topic discussion carefully, help online learners in providing a guideline for the preparation on-topic responses, present rules for those who choose off-topic comments explicitly, state the expectation for online discussions participants to stay on a topic, set alternative locations for off-topic discussions, screen all postings and put off-topic posts to alternative locations with an explanation to participants, incorporate a reminder that responses stay on a topic with all posted questions, reword the original question when responses are going in the wrong direction, provide discussion summary regularly, give warning privately and corrective suggestions to learners who submit off-topic comments, give a reward for those who keep on a topic, and offer a grade for those who keep on a topic. This is really helped the second Indonesian MOOC participants to make the discussions contains more cognitive presences and they can accomplish the course and gain a new knowledge from this online course. Keywords: IMOOC, Facilitators’ strategies, Indonesian Massive Open Online Course, Online discussion

Embracing Dropouts in MOOCs: Exploring Potentials of Invisible Learners

The objective of the paper is to examine how and what the non-completing participants of MOOCs learn. In this paper we term them invisible learners. The paper presents a qualitative study of learning activities and outcomes of invisible learners. The study consists of 11 interviews with MOOC participants and a survey answered by 51 participants. The results of the study show that invisible learners learn by 1) reading and watching, 2) following and being part of, 3) networking, 4) reflecting and 5) applying. Further, the study shows that the learning outcomes of the invisible learners can be described as 1) inspiration, 2) update, and 3) input for practice. Invisible learners show signs of self-governance by choosing what is relevant to them, and initiating their own learning activities in relation to their own practice. The paper concludes that there are educational potentials of the activities of invisible learners. The study shows that the course format may not be suitable for invisible learners that do not wish to do assignments and follow specific learning objectives. Rather, the educational potential is to provide invisible learners with relevant input to their own practices. To accommodate invisible learners, the challenge is to design courses that provide input and inspiration to learners’ own practices without prescribing what they will learn.

Education, Empowerment and Access to All - Public Legal Education and Massive Open Online Courses at the Law Society of Ireland

Since 2014, the Diploma Centre at the Law Society of Ireland (‘the Society’) has implemented a programme of MOOCs; ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ in key areas of practice. This article outlines the provision of Public Legal Education at the Society and how MOOCs align with the mission to widen access to legal education and the legal profession. Of interest to others who may be developing MOOCs, we discuss the instructional design process and feedback from MOOC participants. MOOCs are very much on trend and have received a mixed reception but, subject to course design, they can provide substantial educational benefit and operate as an effective means to widen access to education.

The Case of Turkish University Students and MOOCs

ABSTRACTThough initially proposed as a means of overcoming common barriers to higher education, MOOCs often exacerbate the very issues of accessibility and exclusivity that they were designed to avoid. Students from developing countries in particular face considerable obstacles that hinder or outright prevent their enrollment in and completion of MOOCs. This study finds that, for these students, participation in MOOCs is often complicated by language barriers, limited technological resources, and prevailing Americentric or Eurocentric designs and mindsets, among other issues. These findings were determined and reinforced by a study of Turkish college students from a large state-sponsored metropolitan university, who indicated different levels of knowledge regarding MOOCs as well as various issues, concerns, and complaints. These issues of accessibility and exclusivity must be addressed before MOOCs will truly be able to democratize access to high-quality university-level education, and the best solutions are those that acknowledge the multicultural nature of their user communities.

Enhanced Peer Assessment in MOOC Evaluation Through Assignment and Review Analysis

The rapid evolution of MOOCs in recent years has produced a change in the education of students and in the development of professional skills. There is an increasing pressure on universities to establish procedures for the recognition and certification of student participation in MOOCs. In order to guarantee that the evaluation procedures are in line with the quality of the procedures traditionally established in the university, a proposal for an enhanced peer assessment is required to allow a more precise review of the students' tasks and the assessments provided by his colleagues, considering procedures of verification of originality and a complete rubric for the peer review that takes into account reviewer’s history for a correct grade calibration. This paper describes the implementation of the evaluation tool, and an experimental validation that indicates that the majority of the students who have used the tool for the revision of assignments have generated grades closer to the revisions generated by the professors in the study.

A Study on Learners’ Needs to Increase MOOC Participation

A Study on Learners’ Needs to Increase MOOC Participation

“The best part was the contact!”: Understanding postgraduate students’ experiences of wrapped MOOCs

Mandated to provide support to postgraduate students, the Office of Postgraduate Studies at the University of Cape Town operates in a context characterised by limited funding and resourcing, varied student preparedness for postgraduate study, and increasing student mobility. Extra-curricular academic and professional skills support is offered through a range of modes, including the wrapping of MOOCs. This research explored the contribution of face-to-face, facilitated sessions to the learning experiences of wrapped MOOC participants. Interviews, surveys and course evaluations were analysed using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework. Although the CoI framework surfaced complex relationships between the three presences and students’ learning experiences, with students expressing strong appreciation for the face-to-face contact in addition to online learning, the framework does not surface the substantial impact of learner and structural factors as contributors to learning.

Analyzing instructional design for managing the "massive" participation in language learning MOOCs

Analyzing instructional design for managing the "massive" participation in language learning MOOCs

Massive open online courses and underserved students in the United States

MOOCs have been advanced as a mechanism for increasing access to higher education for underserved populations. However, we still know little about the socio-demographics of MOOC participants in general and even less about underserved MOOC participants in particular. In order to broaden our understanding of MOOC participants, including those who stand to benefit the most from free college coursework, this study relies on a sample of 2634 U.S. MOOC users who participated in at least 398 different MOOCs offered by 129 different universities and 22 different providers. This study replicates findings that suggest MOOC participants are already educationally advantaged while also contributing new findings on the underrepresentation of some racial/ethnic minorities in MOOCs. In addition, data indicate that while underserved users were more likely to take MOOCs for educational advancement, they were also less likely to complete MOOCs. Such findings further challenge the democratizing power of MOOCs as currently conceived.

“Are the Instructors Going to Teach Us Anything?”: Conceptualizing Student and Teacher Roles in the “Rhetorical Composing” MOOC

Abstract This project investigates expressed student and instructor roles within the second iteration of the “Writing II: Rhetorical Composing” MOOC. We utilize cluster criticism and curricular analysis to explore the ways in which MOOC participants slide along a spectrum of roles between student and expert. Our analysis of two primary sites, the course discussion boards and peer review platform (the Writers Exchange), complicates existing MOOC literature, which configures students as either passive recipients of knowledge or active agents who generate knowledge in these massive open online environments. Instead of conforming to the roles of either passive learner or expert teacher, participants in “Rhetorical Composing” shift between these roles frequently and depend upon role switching to both consume and produce knowledge in the MOOC environment. Our findings suggest that we should move beyond traditional, binary ways of understanding performed roles of student and instructor so that we can better understand how learning takes place in these online writing environments.

Examining the Use of Facebook and Twitter as an Additional Social Space in a MOOC

ABSTRACTIn this study, the researchers examined if and to what extent social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter can augment participants’ learning experience in an xMOOC and offer an additional social space. Two research questions guided this inquiry: (1) What did MOOC participants consider the usefulness of the Facebook group and Twitter feed associated with their MOOC course? and (2) How did the participants use the Facebook group and Twitter feed associated with their MOOC course? The findings from participants’ perceptions and usage using both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that the additional social space provided by the two social media tools can augment the learning experience by providing an environment to share resources, connect with others, enhance communications, and provide a space to post personal feelings or reflections of learning in an informal and quick manner. However, the findings did not provide strong evidence to indicate any deeper interactions beyond these uses. The results highlighted the importance of mediation and scaffolding from instructors in using social media tools in order to help connect learners in large online courses such as MOOCs.

Student engagement in massive open online courses

Completion rates in massive open online courses MOOCs are disturbingly low. Existing analysis has focused on patterns of resource access and prediction of drop-out using learning analytics. In contrast, the effectiveness of teaching programs in traditional higher education HE settings internationally is increasingly assessed by surveys measuring student engagement. The conceptualisation of engagement used is much richer and more informative than the way the term is currently interpreted in the context of MOOCs. This paper considers MOOC participation, learning and drop-out in the context of this richer conceptualisation of student engagement. MOOC pedagogy and practice are examined and we evaluate how far HE engagement measures can be successfully used in the MOOC context. We identify the need for a MOOC engagement model and suggest recommendations for basic, initial steps which MOOC developers can make towards improving engagement.

MyLearningMentor: A Mobile App to Support Learners Participating in MOOCs

MOOCs have brought a revolution to education. However, their impact is mainly benefiting people with Higher Education degrees. The lack of support and personalized advice in MOOCs is causing that many of the learners that have not developed work habits and self- learning skills give them up at the first obstacle, and do not see MOOCs as an alternative for their education and training. MyLearningMentor (MLM) is a mobile application that addresses the lack of support and personalized advice for learners in MOOCs. This paper presents the architecture of MLM and practical examples of use. The architecture of MLM is designed to provide MOOC participants with a personalized planning that facilitates them following up the MOOCs they enroll. This planning is adapted to learners' profiles, preferences, priorities and previous performance (measured in time devoted to each task). The architecture of MLM is also designed to provide tips and hints aimed at helping learners develop work habits and study skills, and eventually become self-learners.

Badges in the Carpe Diem MOOC

Throughout March and April 2014, the Learning Transformations Unit at Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne, Australia) developed and delivered the Carpe Diem MOOC (CD MOOC) via the Blackboard CourseSites platform (coursesites.com). The CD MOOC, which attracted 1426 registrations, provided participants with the opportunity to learn about the Carpe Diem learning design process and to apply it to their own educational practice. We discuss the challenges and opportunities faced by the CD MOOC designers and moderators in offering participants the opportunity to obtain digital badges for recognition and reward of their participation and completion of tasks in the CD MOOC. Here we present findings of research into the impact of badges on the completion of learning tasks and the motivation of participants. We demonstrate that many of the CD MOOC participants, who were generally well-educated and mature professionals, were motivated by digital badges – some through to course completion.

Students’ Preferences and Views about Learning in a MOOC

In this paper we examine students’ preferences and views about learning in MOOCs and specify the criteria that make MOOCs a constructive learning environment. We employed the qualitative methodology which included the use of an online survey with open questions and semi-structured interviews. Specifically, we explored MOOCs design features and how students’ competencies can influence their participation in MOOCs. The results of this study may enhance students’ continuity and may help educators develop constructivist MOOCs.