Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are changing the contours of the teaching and learning landscape. Assessment covers an important part of this landscape and may be a key driver for learning. This paper presents preliminary results of a qualitative study that investigated learners’ views on assessment types within a MOOC. A thematic analysis of learners’ interactions in a MOOC Facebook Group and twelve online interviews of learners in the same MOOC reveal that participants identify benefits in peer assessment but they prefer automated assessment as an already-known type. Self-assessment was not preferred by these learners. They reported that clear guidance assists them to carry out peer assessment more effectively. Some learners favored the combination of assessment types, as each of them serves a different purpose for their learning. The learners’ socio-cultural context emerged as a theme affecting both their learning and assessment activities and will be considered for future research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Clow, D.: MOOCs and the funnel of participation. In: Proceedings of the Third Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference, Leuven, Belgium, pp. 185–189 (2013)
Ferguson, R., Clow, D.: Examining engagement: analysing learner subpopulations in massive open online courses (MOOCs). In: Proceedings of the Fifth Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA, pp. 51–58 (2015)
Rowntree, D.: Assessing Students: How Shall We Know Them? Kogan Page, London (1987)
Chao, K.J., Hung, I.C., Chen, N.S.: On the design of online synchronous assessment in a synchronous cyber classroom. J. Comput. Assist. Learn. 28(4), 379–395 (2011)
Vogelsang, T., Ryppertz, L.: On the validity of peer grading and a cloud teaching assistant system. In: Proceedings of the Fifth Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA pp. 41–50 (2015)
Raman, K., Joachims, T.: Bayesian ordinal peer grading. In: Proceedings of the Second Learning @ Scale Conference, Vancouver, BC, Canada, pp. 149–156 (2015)
Balfour, S.P.: Assessing writing in MOOCs: automated essay scoring and calibrated peer review. Res. Pract. Assess. 8(1), 40–48 (2013)
Wilkowski, J., Russel, D. M., Deutsch, A.: Self-evaluation in advanced power searching and mapping with google MOOCs. In: Proceedings of the First Learning @ Scale Conference, New York, USA, pp. 109–116 (2014)
Braun, V., Clark, V.: Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qual. Res. Psychol. 3(2), 77–101 (2006)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Papathoma, T., Blake, C., Clow, D., Scanlon, E. (2015). Investigating Learners’ Views of Assessment Types in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In: Conole, G., Klobučar, T., Rensing, C., Konert, J., Lavoué, E. (eds) Design for Teaching and Learning in a Networked World. EC-TEL 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9307. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24258-3_72
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24258-3_72
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24257-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24258-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)