The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) attract diverse student bodies, and course forums could potentially be an opportunity for students with different political beliefs to engage with one another. We test whether this engagement actually takes place in two politically-themed MOOCs, on education polic...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Nature
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126067 |
| _version_ | 1811084862619123712 |
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| author | Reich, Justin |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing Reich, Justin |
| author_sort | Reich, Justin |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Massive open online courses (MOOCs) attract diverse student bodies, and course forums could potentially be an opportunity for students with different political beliefs to engage with one another. We test whether this engagement actually takes place in two politically-themed MOOCs, on education policy and American government. We collect measures of students’ political ideology, and then observe student behavior in the course discussion boards. Contrary to the common expectation that online spaces often become echo chambers or ideological silos, we find that students in these two political courses hold diverse political beliefs, participate equitably in forum discussions, directly engage (through replies and upvotes) with students holding opposing beliefs, and converge on a shared language rather than talk-ing past one another. Research that focuses on the civic mission of MOOCs helps ensure that open online learning engages the same breadth of purposes that higher education aspires to serve. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:58:26Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/126067 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T12:58:26Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Springer Nature |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1260672022-10-01T12:17:49Z The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums Reich, Justin Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing Massive open online courses (MOOCs) attract diverse student bodies, and course forums could potentially be an opportunity for students with different political beliefs to engage with one another. We test whether this engagement actually takes place in two politically-themed MOOCs, on education policy and American government. We collect measures of students’ political ideology, and then observe student behavior in the course discussion boards. Contrary to the common expectation that online spaces often become echo chambers or ideological silos, we find that students in these two political courses hold diverse political beliefs, participate equitably in forum discussions, directly engage (through replies and upvotes) with students holding opposing beliefs, and converge on a shared language rather than talk-ing past one another. Research that focuses on the civic mission of MOOCs helps ensure that open online learning engages the same breadth of purposes that higher education aspires to serve. 2020-07-07T17:26:22Z 2020-07-07T17:26:22Z 2018-12 2019-12-10T13:59:54Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1560-4306 1560-4292 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126067 Yeomans, Michael et al. “The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums.” International journal of artificial intelligence in education, vol. 28, no. 4, 2018, pp. 553-589 © 2018 The Author(s) en 10.1007/S40593-017-0161-0 International journal of artificial intelligence in education Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Springer Nature PMC |
| spellingShingle | Reich, Justin The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums |
| title | The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums |
| title_full | The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums |
| title_fullStr | The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums |
| title_short | The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums |
| title_sort | civic mission of moocs engagement across political differences in online forums |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126067 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT reichjustin thecivicmissionofmoocsengagementacrosspoliticaldifferencesinonlineforums AT reichjustin civicmissionofmoocsengagementacrosspoliticaldifferencesinonlineforums |