Recommendations on Formative Assessment and Feedback Practices for stronger engagement in MOOCs

Many publications and surveys refer to the high drop out rate in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which is around 90%, especially if we compare the number of students who register against those who finish. Working towards improving student engagement in MOOCs, we focus on providing specific resea...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Floratos, Nikolaos, Guasch, Teresa, Espasa, Anna
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
Repositorio:O2, repositorio institucional de la UOC
OAI Identifier:oai:openaccess.uoc.edu:10609/102553
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10609/102553
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:MOOCs
Formative assessment
Feedback
Student engagement
Peer assessment
Self assessment
MOOCs (Web-based instruction)
Cursos en línia oberts i massius
Enseñanza virtual
Descripción
Sumario:Many publications and surveys refer to the high drop out rate in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which is around 90%, especially if we compare the number of students who register against those who finish. Working towards improving student engagement in MOOCs, we focus on providing specific research-based recommendations on formative assessment and feedback practices that can advance student activity. In this respect, we analysed some significant research papers on formative assessment and feedback methods applicable to face-to-face teaching environments that advance student engagement, and concluded with related requirements and conditions that can be applied also to MOOCs. We also analysed 4050 comments and reviews of the seven most active and highly rated MOOCs (6 Coursera ones and 1 from EdX) provided by the students who have mainly completed those courses via CourseTalk. Based on this content analysis, we have formulated fourteen recommendations that support also the requirements/conditions of our conceptual and theoretical framework analysis. The results obtained give some light in a rather unexplored research area, which is the research on formative assessment and feedback practices specifically for stronger engagement in MOOCs.