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Description
This paper reports on a developmental evaluation of the experience of a group of refugees inGermany who are using massive open online courses (MOOCs) to prepare for entry into theGerman higher education system. The learners were participants in the programme run by KironOpen Higher Education – an NGO which provides a range of educational support services forrefugees in partnership with MOOC providers, MOOC platforms, and German universities. Thestudy aimed to help Kiron evaluate the support they provide to learners.The research methodology was qualitative – data were collected from ten learners via focusgroups, interviews and emails. A categorical analysis of the data generated a set of 43statements representing the learners’ learning experience. These statements were thenanalysed using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) theoretical framework categories (teachingpresence, social presence and cognitive presence) (Garrison, Anderson and Archer, 2010) andlearning presence, which has been proposed by Shea et al. (2014) to account for self-regulationin learners.The analysis shows that the learners valued teaching presence, particularly the facilitationelement, which they sought and found in a wide range of sources. Feedback on their strengths,weaknesses and understanding of subject matter was seen as another critical element ofteaching presence. Online social presence was viewed as being important but generally not wellmanaged at the course level, whilst social presence in the form of face-to- face contact washighly valued. Cognitive presence was articulated mainly in learners’ descriptions of how theyused a range of information sources. Learning presence was described primarily in terms of theimportance of individual goal-setting, planning and the use of learning strategies. From thesedepictions of learning, five recommendations were generated for Kiron: (1) to expand theirmentoring programme; (2) to support learners in arranging public MOOC meet-ups in their localareas; (3) to have volunteers tasked with leading discussion forums for refugee learners onselected MOOCs; (4) to carry out further research into cognitive presence in MOOCs; and (5) toimplement a knowledge exchange amongst learners around learning strategies.Some aspects of the data could not be explained by the CoI framework, pointing to limitations inits use as the sole theoretical tool in a study of refugees’ learning experience on MOOCs.Avenues for future research are considered.
References
Garrison, D.R., Anderson, T. & Archer, W. (2010). The first decade of the community of inquiryframework: A retrospective. The Internet and Higher Education, 13, pp.5–9.
Shea, P. et al. (2014). Reconceptualizing the community of inquiry framework: An exploratoryanalysis. Internet and Higher Education, 23, pp.9–17.
Supporting agencies
The research was carried out in part-fulfilment of my PhD through Lancaster University, and didnot receive funding from any institutions or research bodies. The initial design of the study wasshared with my tutor, Murray Saunders, at Lancaster University, and was enhanced by hisfeedback. Kiron staff kindly facilitated access to learners for the study.
Participants
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Gabi Witthaus
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Martin Hawksey
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ALT
joined 6 years, 8 months ago
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