The role of MOOCs in engineering education: An exploratory systematic review of peer‐reviewed literature

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to explore and evaluate the current status of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in the field of Engineering Education. In line with this aim, the study intends to identify and map the role of "MOOCs in engineering education research" through a review of empirical articles published in peer-reviewed journals indexed in the "Web of Science," "IEEE Xplore," "Scopus," "Science Direct," and the "ACM Digital Library" databases. Social network analysis, content analysis, and inferential-descriptive statistics were applied in the study. The study's findings indicate a growing trend in "MOOCs in engineering education research." Online virtual labs, social networks, flipped classroom strategy, active learning, small private online courses, and motivation are the key lodestar topics in "MOOCs in engineering education research" and engineering education researchers mostly employ practice-based and quantitative research approaches. Besides this, it was found that engineering education researchers use MOOCs for three main purposes: designing a domain-specific MOOC with unique features; developing a system/model for e-learning and MOOCs, or aiming to improve engineering education using interactive online technologies. The findings of the current study indicate that engineering education researchers primarily give importance to performance outcomes and motivation in learning, and try to increase the quality of engineering education through the use of MOOCs. Finally, the findings imply that the general discourse among the sampled articles is positive, and may be considered useful in the exploration of potential research into "MOOCs in engineering education research."

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Higher Education: A Bibliometric Analysis (2012-2022)

“…This indicates that there is a tendency to increase the number of publications, which reflects the growing interest in research in this area. This finding was compatible with that reported by Al-Rahmi et al [17], Liu et al [7], and Sezgin and Cirak [4]. In addition, there has been a sharp increase in the number of citations, particularly from 2012 to 2014.…”

“…Indeed, MOOCs offer an open online course experience that allows participants from different countries to join universities around the world [46]. Due to the rapid growth of MOOCs, colleges and universities across the country are investing heavily in MOOCs to support teaching and learning processes, provide learning experiences, and improve student performance [47,48].…”

“…In other words, MOOCs have shown great potential to provide free and open courses to large numbers of students from anywhere without requiring prerequisites for participation [3,4]. In addition, MOOCs provide learning flexibility with regard to time and place and allow a variety of assignments in one course [5].…”

“…For example, Al-Rahmi et al [17] conducted a systematic review of MOOCs and analyzed 219 articles published between 2012 and 2017. Similarly, Sezgin and Cirak [4] investigated 82 peer-reviewed articles published between 2014 and 2019 from five scientific databases. Furthermore, Veletsianos and Shepherdson [18] also conducted a systematic review of 85 conference papers and 98 research articles published between 2013 and 2015 from the Scopus database.…”

A perspective of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and public health

“…Variations exist around the delivery of knowledge and skills development, depending on the discipline. While conceptual and quantitative descriptive studies of MOOCs in the disciplines of education, computer science, and engineering dominate, the educational approaches are practice-based and readily converge with the science and art of public health ( 24 ). For example, branches of public health, such as epidemiology, lend themselves to independent study.…”