Reviewing the effectiveness of MOOCs: How online learning could exacerbate inequalities.
MOOCs have claimed to provide greater access to education for anyone, anywhere — promising to bridge the educational gaps within and across countries. But has it delivered what it promises?
There are many online learning models, but the most famous one is perhaps the MOOCs — Massive Open Online Courses. It was the most hyped educational buzzword in 2012. Platforms like edX, Coursera, and Udacity have millions of registered students. In 2019, Class Central reported that there are over 110 million students from just the top 5 MOOCs providers. MOOCs have claimed to provide greater access to education for anyone, anywhere — promising to bridge the educational gaps within and across countries. But has it delivered what it promises?
Greater Access versus Real Accessibility
Merely providing access does not equate to the ability to reach out to those who need it the most. Releasing free educational content online does not necessarily mean that we give the best education to the underprivileged group.
The concept of ‘Digital Divide’ provides an excellent framework to understand the unseen reality of access. OECD describes it as follows.
Digital divide is the gaps that separate segments of society as well as whole nations into those who are able to take advantage of the new information and communication technology opportunities and those who are not.
This can be broadly understood from two areas — the access gap and digital literacy skills.
Access Gap. Lack of access to basic tools such as a computer and internet access remains a challenge to participate in MOOCs effectively for most people in developing countries, as well as — not surprisingly — a few groups of less privileged people in developed countries. Telephone connection, power stability, and reliable internet connection are real barriers preventing disadvantaged groups from accessing online learning resources.
Digital literacy. Simply providing content and internet infrastructure would be ineffective if we failed to take into account each individual level of digital literacy. Various reports corroborate this. Most learners who completed online courses are from educated and affluent groups of people. 83% of students already completed their post-secondary degree before starting an online course. This does not sound like equal access to education to me.
There is a danger in which we think simply releasing educational materials online means that everyone is able to access it equally. We can’t forget that each of us has different backgrounds and capabilities to convert the resources available to us. We can’t forget each of us starts from a different starting point, and in order to realise the full potential of online learning, we need to ensure that we take that into account.
Commodifying education
If there is one thing that unites all MOOCs providers, it will be their claim to democratise access to a “world-class” education. Learning from Harvard University, MIT, or Stanford seems like a dream to most of us. Now, thanks to MOOCs, we can easily watch lectures from a Harvard professor. Does this mean that by extending access to a world-class education, we reduce the inequality faced by some people? I wanted to explore here why I felt that this might not be the case, be it reducing inequalities within as well as across countries.
Language. Over 80 percent of online education content is still delivered through English (while only 30 percent of students are native English speakers). We need to ask ourselves: are we democratising education, or are we patronising the non-anglophone groups? How will we reach out to disadvantaged people when proficiency in English is closely related to socio-economic privilege, similar to that of internet access and digital literacy?
Contextualisation. I can’t say this strongly enough. Free educational content will bring us nowhere if it does not fit targeted beneficiaries’ specific context. Standardised educational material is less effective when there are various needs of the students from a varied background. Standardised content is hardly useful without understanding the context of the students who are on the receiving end— for instance, educational content taught in the US might not necessarily be relevant in the Indonesian market. Also, overly-representing North American institutions and ideas that we observe in the current MOOCs landscape might reinforce colonialism, internalise Western knowledge’s superiority, and support uneven power relations. One danger is that this could lead to stereotype threat.
Stereotype threat is a situation when people feel the need to conform to stereotypes associated with their social group.
This concept is first discussed in the paper by Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson. What they found back in 1995 was how stereotype affects performance. In one experiment, they found out that merely telling women that there are gender differences in a math test will significantly affect how women perform. Russell McClain explained it brilliantly in his Ted Talks if you want to know more about stereotype threat.
Translation and contextualisation of content are costly. It is easier to spread the same content to everyone. Lowering the cost of production while increasing the customer base. Capitalism 101. In my opinion, MOOCs — rather than democratising access to education — are closer to commodifying education.
But education is not a commodity. Education is so vital that it should not be commodified. Different society needs different knowledge. Different children need different treatment. We can’t simply give people the same educational content and called it providing education for all. The design of an inclusive learning platform is hence crucial in transforming education from accessible to equitable.
What is the role of MOOCs in learning?
The distribution of educational content can be done through unlimited online sharing; however, learning is a social process. I think we all agree that knowledge is not equal to high test scores. Learning is more than that. It is about the interaction between teachers and students. It is about the exploration of ideas. It is not just about cognitive but also social development.
Used effectively, MOOCs allow educators to shift from creating educational content to nurturing, guiding, and interacting within the learning process. It has the potential to enable teachers to focus on creating an inclusive learning experience beyond test scores. The founder of Coursera herself said this;
“educators should spend less time in transferring content, and more time to ignite students’ creativity.”
You can watch the full talk here.
But isn’t it ironic? We are now saying that an online learning model is a supplementary tool that would improve students’ learning experience. But which students? Not surprisingly, the privileged and the affluent. The one that already has access to traditional teaching facilities. If that is what MOOCs are about, they should stop advertising themselves as “equalising access to education.” Because in reality, they are not. Poor students have to rely upon MOOCs as their primary source of education, while rich kids have the best of both worlds. I’d argue that this is not equalising access — this is widening the existing gaps even more.
It’s complex.
Let’s face it. Inequality is such a complex problem. If it is easy, we probably had fixed it a long time ago. It needs more than simple access to education; it needs an army of sound policies.
Good parenting is essential. Parental education is highly correlated with MOOCs enrollment. Students with educated parents are more than five times more likely to register for an online course. Children’s digital literacy skills reflect their parents’ circumstances. Parents pass on social and cultural capital to their children. Parents decide how much to invest in their children’s development from the earliest age. Whatever happened at home will reflect students’ performance at school. Good parenting is essential. As simple as that.
Early childhood education is just as important as good parenting. MOOCs that are mainly targeting higher education is perhaps too late for an intervention. Achievement gaps observed between students in elementary school are very persistent. The earlier the intervention, the more effective it will be in addressing inequality. A good early childhood education policies that promote cognitive and social development are perhaps 100x more effective than an online learning platform in reducing educational gaps.
Systemic disadvantages have deprived certain groups of gaining equal opportunities. To put it bluntly, the “American Dream” is just a dream. To achieve your dream, you need more than just hard work. Some people are held back in life just because of their race, socio-economic status, or gender. Passive interventions, such as releasing free courses, are inadequate to tackle systemic exclusion. This is why traditional universities in the US have a policy like affirmative action.
In her excellent paper, Rachel Ichou mentioned that the claim of reducing global inequality in education has fallen into the trap of ‘technological determinism’ ( this article explained the term very well). We are viewing MOOCs as a technical fix to highly complex socio-economic realities. Inequality is a complex problem, and we need more than just access to education.
Update for 2020: COVID-19 has forced the implementation of online learning worldwide. In Indonesia, since March 2020, most students and teachers have been affected by school closure, from primary to higher education. Although this is not directly concerning the MOOCs model reviewed above, we see firsthand how online learning has amplified the impact of inequalities. A report done by Smeru Research Institute highlighted this: students with the less fortunate situation (e.g., has no access to gadgets, has disabilities, or accompanied by less prepared teachers or uneducated parents) will experience the worst impacts of the school closure policy. If this is not being taken care of carefully, the learning inequality between students with different privileges, which has existed long before the pandemic, will only get even wider. If we are serious about making education truly equitable for all, moving education into the online space needed more than just the release of educational content.
I am not denying the achievement that MOOCs have achieved. But here, I argue that the online learning model has a long way to go before able to achieve true equality in education. I don’t expect it to be a magic bullet to the fight against inequality (I hope no one does). It is a small step forward in the right direction, but very small. We could not afford to be complacent.
