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

1. 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?
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

2. Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication
Peer assessment as a way to leverage affordances of CMC in large-scale learning online
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

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

4. 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?
10/3/2017
Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

5. 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.
10/3/2017
Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

6. 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?
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

7. Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication
Motivation in MOOCs
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

8. Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication
The Online Learning Enrollment Intention (OLEI) Scale – Kizilcec and Schneider
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

9. Learner Motivations Across Courses
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

10. 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

11. 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.
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

12. 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
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

13. Closing the Online Global Achievement Gap?
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

14. 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
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

15. 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.
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

16. 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.
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

17. Persistence with Course Materials
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

18. Enrollment Rate in Subsequent Courses
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

19. Persistence with Course Chapters and Course Completion Rate
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Cheshire & King— Computer-Mediated Communication

20. 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