On the Massiveness of Massive Open Online Courses: A Phenomenological Investigation of Dino 101

• In Event: Learning Beyond the Platform: Qualitative Studies in Massive Open Online Courses

Abstract

Objectives

Virtual learning environments—from Moodles to MOOCs—provide teachers and students unique spaces in which to teach and learn. Yet we may wonder: what is it like for students to learn in these online classrooms? For example, is a MOOC really experienced by students as “massive” and otherwise different from other online (or offline) educational spaces? And if so, is massive a meaningful distinction pedagogically? Drawing on phenomenological interviews with over thirty students who successfully completed Dino 101: Dinosaur Paleobiology, our study examined the experiential landscapes of students “learning large”.

Perspective(s)/theoretical framework

The study employed a qualitative research methodology called “phenomenology of practice” (van Manen, 2014). Phenomenological research is oriented to our everyday lifeworld as it is experienced in the immediacy of the lived now. The purpose of this form of inquiry is not to explain or theorize a phenomenon, but to highlight unique, concrete, and often taken-for-granted aspects of an experience as it is lived through, and to offer reflective understandings of that experience.

Data sources and methods

For this study, we solicited participation from students who had completed Coursera’s Dino 101 MOOC either as a free course, or as part of their regular, campus-based university coursework. In total 32 individuals were interviewed in person, by telephone, or via online communication software. Phenomenological interviews aim at helping participants recall lived moments rather than eliciting personal opinions about the phenomenon of interest. The research team reviewed the interview transcripts to isolate participants’ lived experience descriptions (LEDs); LEDs were subsequently read line-by-line to identify what each phrase or sentence revealed about the phenomenon of learning in a MOOC. Our analyses attended especially to the lived spatial and relational aspects of the Dino 101 learning experience.

Results

We discovered that the lived space of a Dino 101 seemed to consist of multiple places, each with its own mood and atmosphere. For example, watching s video lecture was primarily described as convening a close and intimate sphere; whereas, navigating the social forums was, for some, experienced as unwieldy, overwhelming or unexpectedly lonely. The lived dimensions of the Dino 101 MOOC were tied to its software architecture, its navigational affordances and hindrances, but too, reached well beyond its logical boundaries. The Dino 101 classroom consisted not only of the variety of medial spaces represented on the screen (videos, learning objects, forums), but too, encompassed the student’s study, bedroom or living room. In some cases, the Dino 101 experience extended to museums visits and family field trips across the country.

Significance

Our research challenges educators to recognize that, although the space of MOOCs may originate in and through a networked computer screen, it can quickly expand to encompass the larger world, including local and global places. This possible expansion of the MOOC well beyond its original ground and its meaningful entwinement with the students’ everyday world may to be prove evidence of student engagement and authentic learning far beyond any quiz, test, or assignment conceived by MOOC designers.

Authors

• Catherine Adams, University of Alberta

• Erika Goble, University of Alberta

• Yin Yin, University of Alberta

• Luis Francisco Vargas Madriz, University of Alberta