Cultural challenges and research strategies in multicultural MOOCs
Cultural challenges and research strategies in multicultural MOOCs
Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs hold the promise of democratising education and benefitting learners from diverse global backgrounds and cultures on a massive scale. We have carried out a systematic literature review on studies that researched cultural aspects in MOOCs. This review has confirmed the importance of cultural difference as a factor that influences globally diverse learners in massive multicultural open online courses and impacts their expectations, perceptions and their whole learning experience. This report identifies various types of research, different educational areas of research focus, the origins of MOOC platforms from the reviewed literature, the language of instruction used, and theoretical frameworks and models for mitigating cultural challenges. It investigates various approaches focussing on different levels of culture.
Based on the results of this literature review, this paper provides future researchers with some recommendations and possible directions when conducting research on cultural issues in MOOCs. The paper suggests a shift of research focus towards mixed methodology approaches for better generalisation. Furthermore, triangulation of data and methods in this interdisciplinary field is recommended to gain a deeper and wider understanding of MOOCs. Also, it may be beneficial to investigate cultural differences over several platforms from different global origins and over multiple MOOC iterations. Finally, researchers are encouraged to study cultural characteristics on an individual level, rather than national level, as learners are influenced to different degrees by their physical and virtual experiences.
Additionally, this paper presents an inventory of suggestions for MOOC development teams to consider when they are designing and delivering MOOC courses for a multicultural audience.
Massive open online courses, MOOC, culture, multicultural, cultural challenges, systematic, Literature review
8364-8370
Shahini, Rana
6a889cdb-d085-49ed-b5ad-73b4334869cb
Davis, Hugh.C
1608a3c8-0920-4a0c-82b3-ee29a52e7c1b
Borthwick, Kate
34fa2da0-35c3-4302-932c-141b94aec4b4
2019
Shahini, Rana
6a889cdb-d085-49ed-b5ad-73b4334869cb
Davis, Hugh.C
1608a3c8-0920-4a0c-82b3-ee29a52e7c1b
Borthwick, Kate
34fa2da0-35c3-4302-932c-141b94aec4b4
Shahini, Rana, Davis, Hugh.C and Borthwick, Kate
(2019)
Cultural challenges and research strategies in multicultural MOOCs.
In INTED2019 Proceedings.
IATED Academy.
.
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs hold the promise of democratising education and benefitting learners from diverse global backgrounds and cultures on a massive scale. We have carried out a systematic literature review on studies that researched cultural aspects in MOOCs. This review has confirmed the importance of cultural difference as a factor that influences globally diverse learners in massive multicultural open online courses and impacts their expectations, perceptions and their whole learning experience. This report identifies various types of research, different educational areas of research focus, the origins of MOOC platforms from the reviewed literature, the language of instruction used, and theoretical frameworks and models for mitigating cultural challenges. It investigates various approaches focussing on different levels of culture.
Based on the results of this literature review, this paper provides future researchers with some recommendations and possible directions when conducting research on cultural issues in MOOCs. The paper suggests a shift of research focus towards mixed methodology approaches for better generalisation. Furthermore, triangulation of data and methods in this interdisciplinary field is recommended to gain a deeper and wider understanding of MOOCs. Also, it may be beneficial to investigate cultural differences over several platforms from different global origins and over multiple MOOC iterations. Finally, researchers are encouraged to study cultural characteristics on an individual level, rather than national level, as learners are influenced to different degrees by their physical and virtual experiences.
Additionally, this paper presents an inventory of suggestions for MOOC development teams to consider when they are designing and delivering MOOC courses for a multicultural audience.
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Accepted/In Press date: 7 January 2019
e-pub ahead of print date: 11 March 2019
Published date: 2019
Additional Information:
it has to be checked for open access with the publishers
Keywords:
Massive open online courses, MOOC, culture, multicultural, cultural challenges, systematic, Literature review
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Local EPrints ID: 429674
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/429674
PURE UUID: a79c9535-e1df-45f1-8b9e-32d9a266c36a
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Date deposited: 03 Apr 2019 16:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:49
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Contributors
Author:
Rana Shahini
Author:
Hugh.C Davis
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