By David George Glance, Martin Forsey, and Myles Riley. Abstract In 2011, the respective roles of higher education institutions and students worldwide were brought into question by the rise of the massive open online course (MOOC). MOOCs are defined by signature characteristics that include: lectures formatted as short videos combined with formative quizzes; automated assessment and/or peer and self–assessment and an online forum for peer support and discussion. Although not specifically designed to optimise learning, claims have been made that MOOCs are based on sound pedagogical foundations that are at the very least comparable with courses offered by universities in face–to–face mode. To validate this, we examined the literature for empirical evidence substantiating such claims. Although empirical evidence directly related to MOOCs was difficult to find, the evidence suggests that there is no reason to believe that MOOCs are any less effective a learning experience than their face–to–face counterparts. Indeed, in some aspects, they may actually improve learning outcomes.
Introduction In 2011, the respective roles of higher education institutions and students worldwide were brought into question by the rise of the massive open online course (MOOC). MOOC platforms Coursera (2012a), edX (2012) and Udacity (2012) have partnered with 33 universities, offering more than 200 courses to over two million students in 196 countries (Coursera, 2012b). Courses offered have attracted enrolments of up to 160,000 students (Fazackerley, 2012) lending the “massive” portion to the name MOOC. These courses are also free or “open”. Given that these courses are being offered by some of the most prestigious of universities, the potential disruptive nature of MOOCs was recognised early on. After all, if a student could take a course from Princeton University for free, why would they pay for an identical course given by their local (less famous) institution? Given the growth in availability of MOOCs, the question could be extended to why someone wouldn’t do an entire degree programme in this way. Of course, there are a number of practical issues that need to be resolved before this happens. Providing proctored examinations to students who have had their identities verified being the most salient. However, a more fundamental question has been raised on both sides of the argument. Namely, do MOOCs represent a pedagogically sound format for learning at a tertiary level? Claims for and against the pedagogical foundations of MOOCs have been made by a variety of interested parties (Association for Learning Technology, 2012; Baker, 2012; Moe, 2012) but these claims have been backed with only a scant amount of evidence or indeed agreement as to the defining characteristics of a MOOC and the pedagogical foundations it rests upon.
For the purposes of our study, we have taken the representative format of MOOCs as they exist on sites such as Udacity (2012), Coursera (2012a) and edX (2012). These courses exhibit common defining characteristics that include: massive participation; online and open access; lectures formatted as short videos combined with formative quizzes; automated assessment and/or peer and self–assessment and online fora for peer support and discussion. There is no absolute definition of each of these characteristics, however. Even the concept of massive is open to interpretation. Although claims have been made to large registrations of up to 160,000 participants (Fazackerley, 2012), the number who complete the course is typically much lower, of the order of 5–15 percent of initial enrolees (Korn and Levitz, 2013). Realistically, in order to qualify as massive, the participation at any point during the running of the course should be large enough that it couldn’t be run in a conventional face–to–face manner.
The pedagogical foundations claimed for MOOCs follow on from their attributes and in part are justifications for those attributes. So it has been argued that online learning is particularly effective, formative quizzes enhance learning through the mechanism of retrieval practice, short video formats with quizzes allow for mastery learning and peer and self–assessment enhance learning. Further claims have been made that short videos complement the optimal attention span of students (Khan, 2012) and that discussion forums provide an adequate replacement of direct teacher–student interactions that would be considered normal for a class delivered on campus. The justification of pedagogical benefits of MOOCs is in all likelihood teleological. The benefits have been retrofitted after the fact to a course format pioneered by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig (2012). The fact that their original course and others that have followed have proved so popular, however, would suggest that there are positive aspects to the way they have been presented. The structure and format of MOOCs is being adapted as more experience is gained with their delivery and so it is important to understand in a systematic manner their benefits and shortfalls.
The purpose of this review is to examine the evidence regarding the pedagogical foundations of MOOCs and indeed validate that these foundations actually relate to the attributes of MOOCs as they are currently envisioned. These attributes and their pedagogical consequences are shown in
Table 1. A difficulty with the analysis of MOOC structure and its pedagogical foundations is the question of how similar a MOOC is to existing online courses offered for distance learning or as an extension of face–to–face delivery of courses as part of a so–called blended delivery. In some ways they are not and so the analysis of MOOCs is inherently not that different from research examining the benefits of online delivery of courses generally. The difference lies in the particular combination of the underlying characteristic components of MOOCs, their massive participation and the fact that they are open. The subtlety in the novelty of MOOCs is not the point of this paper, however, and will be left for exploration in future work.
Contents Methodology
The efficacy of online learning
The importance of retrieval and testing for learning
Mastery learning
Peer and self–assessment
Short format videos
Online forums and video discussions
Conclusion.
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