Computer-Mediated Communication Online Education and CMC: Part 2 – Assessment of Learning Outcomes

Assessing Online Learning Outcomes -thoughts on Reich? -Sam: what started as “access” is now often about “efficiency” -Anne: A lot of this also reminds us to ask a key question: what are the main goals of MOOCs again? 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication Peer assessment as a way to leverage affordances of CMC in large-scale learning online https://group5hah.wordpress.com/ 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication Breakdown of Students Enrolled in Online HCI courses (Kulkarni et al. 2015) 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Peer and Self Assessment in Massive Online Classes Key takeaway points from these studies of peer grading? Under what conditions might peer assessment/feedback seem to work best (or worst)? -grading agreement between staff and students? -do students improve in peer rating? http://marketingland.com/ 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Peer and Self Assessment in Massive Online Classes Changing role of teachers? Changing role of students? Changing definition of ‘the classroom’? *note that 42% of students said that seeing other students’ work as a big benefit of assessment. https://www.caldwell.edu/news/april-fools-2015 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Motivations and Online Learning Recalling Jason’s comments: the ‘transactional’ nature of online learning -hard to ‘hang out’ -hard to create organic socialization -In terms of social motivation..others? 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication Motivation in MOOCs 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication The Online Learning Enrollment Intention (OLEI) Scale – Kizilcec and Schneider 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Learner Motivations Across Courses 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Structure of Motivations One of the main things they learned is that these could not be easily reduced to just a few groups of intentions (at best they were getting 30% of the variance with six factors (groupings) of variables. Not that great. 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Predicted Probabilities of Milestones Note some interesting trends– why might research/school relevance be *less* likely to do assignments, watch videos? -also, certificate and prestige of university are a big factor for doing assignments, watching videos. 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication I wonder if, by flipping the regression from section 5, usage behavior could be used to predict a learner's intention. Eye-balling Figure 2, it's clear that the only predictor of earning a certificate with sufficient statistical significance was being motivated to take the course with others. Could higher success rates earning certificates indicate that learners for this online environment are more interested in taking the course with others that learners for other courses? – Andrew Head Virtual social spaces outside the online classroom realm - This is such a tangled concept for me…I guess, philosophically, this boils down to: is part of the schooling experience making friends in identical fields as your own? Does this breed some sense of collaboration and academic growth from a close co-mingling of different takes on the same topics? Does this actually happen in reality? Maybe the undergraduate experience is different from the graduate, or I'm just socially deficient... I guess where I'm going with this is that a virtual social space not designed explicitly for academic discussion (piazza...) would be nice for IRL classes too!! – Bret Hart 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Closing the Online Global Achievement Gap? 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication Some Data: Course completion in 55 MOOCs as a function of the Human Development Index (HDI) HDI: countries health, education, and income levels. HDI of .7 or more is high. (7.7% comple 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Testing the Social Identity Threat Fear of being seen as less capable because of one’s group. Can impair working memory, persistence, and learning. Some academic achievement gaps in US based on race/gender/social status may originate from an identity threat. 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Experimental Interventions: Some learners completed activities known to lessen identity threat. Self-affirmation activity Activity to reassure individual of their belongingness in the course. Other learners completed ‘control’ activities. -Self affirmation: having them write about cherished personal values, such as relationships with family. -Social belongingness activity: participants read testimonials from advanced learners about how they worried at first and then became comfortable. 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Persistence with Course Materials 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Enrollment Rate in Subsequent Courses 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Persistence with Course Chapters and Course Completion Rate 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

Why this matters for CMC Very specific outcomes (e.g., learning objectives), which are both produced and evaluated through digital media technologies. Like many areas of science, we often know a lot about individual aspects (e.g., asynchronous vs synchronous media, lean vs rich channels, etc), but systems of interacting media channels for a particular purpose are infinitely more complex. 10/3/2017 Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication