research-article

MOOCs in Higher Education: A Study on the Learning Effectiveness, Quality and Usability of a SPOC on Introduction to Programming

Authors:

Georgios Psathas,

Christos Katsanos,

Thrasyvoulos Tsiatsos,

Stergios Tegos,

Stavros DemetriadisAuthors Info & Claims

PCI '20: Proceedings of the 24th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics

Pages 46 - 49

https://doi.org/10.1145/3437120.3437272

Published: 04 March 2021 Publication History

Abstract

In most Universities today, the sheer size of students in a single class and the limited time for on-campus lessons or activities limit the learning experience for both students and professors. Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs), which are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) used locally to support certain groups of learners, can be a practical solution to this problem. Previous studies included only self-reported data to measure students' satisfaction and learning experience on SPOCs. There is also little longitudinal research on how SPOC-supported blended learning affects students' academic performance. This paper presents a SPOC on Introduction to Programming and explores its learning effectiveness, perceived course quality, perceived educational experience, and platform usability for on-campus Computer Science students. A total of 454 students were involved in a between-subjects study comparing a traditional lectured-based class to a SPOC-supported blended class. Results showed that students in the SPOC-supported class achieved significantly higher grades in the final exams and provided significantly higher course quality assessments. In addition, they rated their perceived educational experience as very satisfactory and the perceived usability of the SPOC platform as good-to-excellent.

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Cited By

Bawane J(2025)MOOCs: A Historical and Critical DialogueThe Evolving Landscape of Higher Education in India10.1007/978-981-97-9270-2_13(179-195)Online publication date: 24-Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9270-2_13
Katsanos CMelissourgos GTselios N(2023)GR-UMUX and GR-UMUX-LITE: A First Step Towards Standardization of the Usability Metric for User Experience and its LITE Version in GreekProceedings of the 27th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Progress in Computing and Informatics10.1145/3635059.3635075(102-108)Online publication date: 24-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3635059.3635075
Pertuz SReyes OCristobal EMeier RCastro M(2023)MOOC-Based Flipped Classroom for On-Campus Teaching in Undergraduate Engineering CoursesIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2023.328289666:5(468-478)Online publication date: Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2023.3282896
Show More Cited By

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cover image ACM Other conferences

PCI '20: Proceedings of the 24th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics

November 2020

433 pages

ISBN:9781450388979

DOI:10.1145/3437120

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 04 March 2021

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PCI 2020

PCI 2020: 24th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics

November 20 - 22, 2020

Athens, Greece

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Overall Acceptance Rate 190 of 390 submissions, 49%

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Cited By

Bawane J(2025)MOOCs: A Historical and Critical DialogueThe Evolving Landscape of Higher Education in India10.1007/978-981-97-9270-2_13(179-195)Online publication date: 24-Jan-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9270-2_13
Katsanos CMelissourgos GTselios N(2023)GR-UMUX and GR-UMUX-LITE: A First Step Towards Standardization of the Usability Metric for User Experience and its LITE Version in GreekProceedings of the 27th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Progress in Computing and Informatics10.1145/3635059.3635075(102-108)Online publication date: 24-Nov-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3635059.3635075
Pertuz SReyes OCristobal EMeier RCastro M(2023)MOOC-Based Flipped Classroom for On-Campus Teaching in Undergraduate Engineering CoursesIEEE Transactions on Education10.1109/TE.2023.328289666:5(468-478)Online publication date: Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TE.2023.3282896
Daramsenge BHsueh NLai L(2022)Analyzing Students’ Learning Engagements Using PLS-SEM: A Case Study in A Small Private Online Programming CourseProceedings of the 2022 6th International Conference on Education and E-Learning10.1145/3578837.3578870(227-234)Online publication date: 21-Nov-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3578837.3578870
Fernandez-De La Pena CDiaz-Tufinio C(2022)Experience in the incorporation of MOOCs in undergraduate courses in Engineering and Science2022 IEEE Learning with MOOCS (LWMOOCS)10.1109/LWMOOCS53067.2022.9927753(47-51)Online publication date: 29-Sep-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/LWMOOCS53067.2022.9927753

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