Fostering the Use of Online Learning Resources: Results of Using a Mobile Collaboration Tool based on Gamification in a Blended Course

Abstract

Over the past years, higher education institutions have been exploring different mechanisms to adapt their learning and teaching practices to increase students’ engagement. One of the proposals has been to reuse Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) as Small Online Private Courses (SPOCs), or as complementary resources in traditional courses through blended learning practices, such as flipped classroom. However, the integration of online courses as a complement to face-to-face courses poses some challenges. First, students are not used to such blended learning approaches and it is generally difficult for teachers to motivate them to access online resources for the preparation of face-to-face sessions. Second, students are not used to the dynamics of blended learning scenarios, which are less teacher-centered and require their active participation. We propose the use of the mobile application MyMOOCSpace (MMS) to meet these challenges and increase students’ motivation and use of learning resources in blended learning courses that use SPOCs as a complement. MMS is a mobile learning application based on gamification mechanisms to promote collaboration and motivation of students in the use of digital resources as a complement to blended learning courses. In this paper, we present the results of a quasi-experiment in a blended course with 294 students that uses a SPOC as a complement, with the aim to assess the effect of MMS on students’ motivation and learning resources consumption. In particular, the behavior of two groups of students with the main digital resources of the SPOC (videos and formative assessments) was analyzed: one using the MMS (GTest group), and the other not using MMS (GTrad group). The results suggest that the use of MMS had a positive correlation with the videos consumption, besides increasing student’ interaction with assessment exercises in the SPOC.