Article Summary 7: Instructional Design Quality of Massive Open Online Courses

This is a summary of the article "Instructional Quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)" written by Anoush Margaryan; Manuela Bianco; and Allison Littlejohn.

This article can be read here.

Instructional Quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

By: Anoush Margaryan, Manuela Bianco, Allison Littlejohn

Introduction

MOOCs are a new form of online learning
Early MOOCs used a Connectivist Learning Theory approach in which students learned by making connections between the knowledge brought by the collective students and not an authoritative lecturer
Change in 2011 from connectivist approach to more linear-based learning systems

Critics say the success of MOOCs is inflated and are not convinced of the quality of the education they provide:

No quality indicators exist for measuring this in MOOCs
Very little empirical research on the effectiveness of MOOCs for learning/teaching
This paper focuses on assessing the quality of MOOCs and how they are designed

Principles of Instruction

Assessed instructional design of MOOCs based on First Principles of Instruction:

Problem-Centered: focuses on real world problems and issues to make the learning relatable to the student and their life
Activation: similar to scaffolding, this is when students build on knowledge and experience they already have to learn the next level of new concepts
Demonstration: again focuses on real-life application of the skill. Learners will learn the material better if they see it demonstrated by the instructor- both good and bad examples which are then discussed
Application: Students must have the opportunity to apply and use the skills they are being taught before they can fully know them
Integration: emphasis on discussion and reflection by the students to see how and if they have incorporated the new skills into their daily lives

Methodology

Studied 76 MOOCs and assessed instructional design quality based on the Course Scan Questionnaire
Completed by 2 researchers intimately familiar with instructional design quality and the Course Scan questionnaire which they used while observing the course materials as well as observing the MOOC

Findings and Discussion

Most MOOCs obtained low scores on the Course Scan questionnaire

Findings as they relate to First Principles of Instruction:

Problem-Centered: Most MOOCs did not meet this criterium- only 8% of cMOOCs and 15% of xMOOCs had real-world problems incorporated
Activation: Most MOOCs did not meet this criterium- only 7/76 courses required or attempted to build upon prior knowledge and experience
Demonstration: Most MOOCs did not meet this criterium- as most of them did not present real-world problems, there was no opportunity to do demonstration. Only one MOOC showed both good and bad examples and demonstrations.
Application: In 45/76 courses, the learning activities were not focused on application of knowledge. The others did to varying extents (low, medium and high levels)
Integration: Low evidence of this occurring in MOOC courses
Overall indication was that the quality of instructional design is low in MOOCs

Conclusion

As MOOCs increase in popularity, there is a need for them to address the issue of their low instructional design quality or else risk doing a disservice to the students
The draw to a MOOC may be its association to a university but the quality of the MOOC is much poorer than the quality of in-person instruction

Speculation of potential causes for the MOOCs to be of low instructional design quality:

Professors lack knowledge of instructional design quality in regards to MOOCs
Professors driven by university marketing rather than pedagogy
Future research could look more in to this in an effort to help resolve it
One shortcoming of research is that it cannot be compared to in-person classes as those were not studied, so cannot say if MOOC is better or worse in instructional design quality than that professor’s in-person courses