Abstract
In 2016, the Indian government introduced the SWAYAM regulation, allowing Indian MOOCs to be an alternative to regular classroom learning in higher education. The policy was designed to facilitate broader access to high-quality learning content and provisioning for credit transfer. However, after the introduction of the regulation, studies have yet to be conducted on the impact of MOOC policy in higher education. This study employs a policy evaluation framework to ascertain the effects of the SWAYAM MOOC policy on its key stakeholders, students, and faculty in higher education based on the data gathered from our survey. Drawing from more than five hundred survey data collected from multiple engineering and science colleges across India, we investigated the experiences of both faculty and students using quantitative and qualitative statistics. The analysis compared stakeholders' perspectives on MOOCs with traditional classroom learning. Our study revealed that the current version of MOOCs under the SWAYAM policy fails to provide avenues for face-to-face discussion, hands-on skill development or real-life learning experiences, which are crucial in engineering and science education. However, students and faculty agreed that MOOCs provide learning flexibility and enrich knowledge beyond the classroom curriculum. The faculty members also believe that MOOCs negatively impact the professional development of the students. We also found that students reaffirmed the importance of classroom learning and are convinced that MOOCs should not substitute classroom courses. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the findings and highlighting feedback for policy stakeholders.
Author Information
Anurag Mehra, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Pramath Kant, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India
Paper Information
Conference: ECE2024
Stream: Educational policy
This paper is part of the ECE2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Mehra A., & Kant P. (2024) A Comparative Evaluation of MOOCs and Classroom Learning in Engineering and Science in India: A MOOC Policy Assessment ISSN: 2188-1162 The European Conference on Education 2024: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 719-738) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2024.57
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2188-1162.2024.57
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