Going Global: Understanding English Language Learners’ Student Motivation in English-Language MOOCs

Uchidiuno, Judith Odili; Ogan, Amy; Yarzebinski, Evelyn; Hammer, Jessica

doi:10.1007/s40593-017-0159-7

Cited by 26 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Massive online open courses (MOOCs) are one innovative product of these technological and educational developments, in which course design mentality has shifted from being curriculum oriented to experience oriented [7]. Despite the fact that MOOCs have been used worldwide, the number of language learners who adopt them for learning remains limited [8] because only a handful of MOOCs are specifically designed for language learning and teaching [9]. In the field of language education research, pertinent studies on MOOCs are rather sparse [10]; to extend our current understanding of the effectiveness of language MOOCs (LMOOCs), more empirical evidence is needed to serve as a rationale for future application.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Grounded Theory Exploration of Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs): Understanding Students’ Viewpoints

Hsu

2021

Sustainability

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Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been called the biggest innovation in education in 200 years for their unique attribute of being open and free to any individual with Internet access; however, their high dropout rate has led many people to be concerned or dubious about their effectiveness and applicability. The applicability of MOOCs in English for specific purposes (ESP) courses (in this case, hospitality English) needs more empirical evidence; the present study intends to help fill this gap and extend our current understanding of this issue. This study followed a grounded theory methodology to develop a theoretical model based on a constant dialogue between collected data and the literature. The results suggest that most participants had positive perceptions of language MOOCs (LMOOCs) in general, but some doubted their applicability. Most participants said they would continue to use LMOOCs for learning, depending on the attributes of specific courses. Based on the extracted data, a conceptual model for the applicability of LMOOCs is proposed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Grounded Theory Exploration of Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs): Understanding Students’ Viewpoints

Hsu

2021

Sustainability

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“…Similarly to previous studies [5,30], we refer to language proficiency of an individual as a binary variable with the values Native and Non-native English speaker. Development is measured using the country level Human Development Index (HDI), [31] as a (very) rough estimate for personal SES.…”

Section: Language Development Status and Learning In Moocsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining and Measuring Completion and Assessment Biases with Respect to English Language and Development Status: Not All MOOCs are Equal

Gershon¹,

Ruipérez‐Valiente²,

Alexandron³

2021

Preprint

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The emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) broadened the educational landscape by providing free access to quality learning materials for anyone with a device connected to the Internet. However, open access does not guarantee equals opportunities to learn, and research has repetitively reported that learners from affluent countries benefit the most from MOOCs. In this work, we delve into this gap by defining and measuring completion and assessment biases with respect to learners' language and development status. We do so by performing a large-scale analysis across 158 MITx MOOC runs from 120 different courses offered on edX between 2013 and 2018, with 2.8 million enrollments. We see that learners from developing countries are less likely to complete MOOCs successfully, but we do not find evidence regarding a negative effect of not being English-native. Our findings point out that not only the specific population of learners is responsible for this bias, but also that the course itself has a similar impact. Independent of and less frequent than completion bias, we found assessment bias, that is when the mean ability gained by learners from developing countries is lower than that of learners from developed countries. The ability is inferred from the responses of the learners to the course-assessment using Item Response Theory (IRT).Finally, we applied Differential Item Functioning (DIF) methods with the objective of detecting items that might be causing the assessment bias, obtaining weak, yet positive results with respect to the magnitude of the bias reduction. Our results provide statistical evidence on the role that course design might have on these biases, with a call for action so that the future generation of MOOCs focus on strengthening their inclusive design approaches.

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“…Similarly to previous studies (Türkay et al, 2017;Uchidiuno et al, 2018b), we refer to language proficiency of an individual as a binary variable with the values Native and Non-native English speaker. Development is measured using the country level Human Development Index (HDI) (Nations U, 2021), as a (very) rough estimate for personal SES.…”

Section: Language Development Status and Learning In Moocsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining and measuring completion and assessment biases with respect to English language and development status: not all MOOCs are equal

Gershon

Ruipérez‐Valiente

Alexandron

2021

Int J Educ Technol High Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) broadened the educational landscape by providing free access to quality learning materials for anyone with a device connected to the Internet. However, open access does not guarantee equals opportunities to learn, and research has repetitively reported that learners from affluent countries benefit the most from MOOCs. In this work, we delve into this gap by defining and measuring completion and assessment biases with respect to learners’ language and development status. We do so by performing a large-scale analysis across 158 MITx MOOC runs from 120 different courses offered on edX between 2013 and 2018, with 2.8 million enrollments. We see that learners from developing countries are less likely to complete MOOCs successfully, but we do not find evidence regarding a negative effect of not being English-native. Our findings point out that not only the specific population of learners is responsible for this bias, but also that the course itself has a similar impact. Independent of and less frequent than completion bias, we found assessment bias, that is when the mean ability gained by learners from developing countries is lower than that of learners from developed countries. The ability is inferred from the responses of the learners to the course-assessment using item response theory (IRT). Finally, we applied differential item functioning (DIF) methods with the objective of detecting items that might be causing the assessment bias, obtaining weak, yet positive results with respect to the magnitude of the bias reduction. Our results provide statistical evidence on the role that course design might have on these biases, with a call for action so that the future generation of MOOCs focus on strengthening their inclusive design approaches.

show abstract

Going Global: Understanding English Language Learners’ Student Motivation in English-Language MOOCs

Cited by 26 publications

References 28 publications

A Grounded Theory Exploration of Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs): Understanding Students’ Viewpoints

A Grounded Theory Exploration of Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOCs): Understanding Students’ Viewpoints

Defining and Measuring Completion and Assessment Biases with Respect to English Language and Development Status: Not All MOOCs are Equal

Defining and measuring completion and assessment biases with respect to English language and development status: not all MOOCs are equal

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