Student enrollment in both Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and university online courses has grown exponentially. Student engagement is a key factor to ensure students’ successful completion of any course. The purpose of this study is to explore perception of engagement in both of these settings through the lens of an autoethnograhical design.
Description and Goals:
Online education is becoming a major approach to instruction and learning globally. Online learning or e-learning utilizes information and communication technologies to communicate and collaborate in an educational milieu. Student engagement is a key factor to ensure students’ successful completion of their degree (Ivankova, 2014; Stott, 2016). Stimulating and maintaining student engagement is a major goal for educators and educational institutions since retention increases with increased level of student academic and social engagement. Student engagement information measures the individual’s intrinsic involvement with their learning and also provides a measure of educational outcomes through the student’s involvement in the educational processes and can act as a proxy for the quality of the education that can be used for evaluation of the resources (Shulman, 2002; Ewell & Jones, 1993; Kuh et al., 1997; Kahu, 2013).
Online and other forms of e-learning have a rich history of research, reviews of that research, and development of models and frameworks (Arbaugh et al., 2009) with evidence that although there are numerous advantages of online learning, there is also increased concern about student retention, engagement and interaction in online courses (Street, 2010; Xie, 2013). Motivation and engagement plays a key role in persistence and the extent of learning in all education environments. This is especially true in cases of online engagement in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). There is a growing body of research by researchers from multiple disciplines who have studied students' demographics, their performances, MOOC retention rates, best practices for course design and pedagogy (Liyanagunawardena, Adams, & Williams, 2013). Most of the research has been quantitative surveys or mixed –method studies. Qualitative work in MOOC research is just beginning through qualitative methods examining student writing in assignments and on discussion forums in MOOCs along with some aspects of social engagement (Barak, Watted, & Haick, 2016; Comer, Clark, & Canelas, 2014).
Given the importance of student engagement for retention in online courses, the present study explores and compares student engagement in university credit academic courses and student engagement in online courses in MOOC through the lens of the researcher’s personal experiences using an autoethnographical design. This method enables the researcher to act both as researcher and participant constructing an understanding of a social context and culture that focuses as much on what is felt, heard, and experienced, as on what is seen (Ellis, 2004). Autoethnography is a form of ethnography that uses the self as a lens to understand a wider culture and in turn uses the experiences of others to better understand the self (Ellis, 2004). This study was developed to show the researcher’s perspective as an online student in both MOOC as well as for credit online course in universities to comprehend the similarities and differences along with the difficulties and challenges within different scenarios. The researcher has taken 9 online courses for university credit and three online courses through MOOCs. The researcher also has been a co-instructor in an online course. Data was construed through reflexive journals and self-reflection during coursework. Autoethnography was employed as a means of examining the experiences more methodically (Ellis, Adams & Bochner, 2011), thus benefiting my understanding of my own engagement in online courses and the reason for the differences between different settings, whilst also exploring the usefulness of the research method. The findings highlight both the advantages and potential problems of narrative methods of inquiry and self-reflection and the similarities and differences in reasons for online engagement. Course design and navigation were themes that emerged that could engage as well as not engage in the online courses. Feedback and interaction also emerged as themes. The flexibility offered by online courses in both settings was a theme that was identified to keep one engaged in the course, while the lack of structure and official deadlines for assignments, and the option to continue the coursework in the next session with no college credit was an impediment to motivation in the MOOC.
Participants in this session will learn- firstly the feasibility of using autoethnography to gain an informed and more descriptive view of online engagement experiences in different scenarios and secondly understand more about the experience of an online student and online instructor’s perspective in order to become a more reflective practitioner, and will have the opportunity for interactive question and answers in this discovery session. Participants will be provided with recommendations and practical advices on lessons learned and process to inform online program development.