The analysis of the interview data yielded four perceived affordances: opportunities for peer learning, forms of personalisation, opportunities for social interaction and course design and learning support and three perceived limitations: lack of proficiency, lack of affinity and course design and lack of teacher presence. These affordances and limitations are presented in three levels: concept (MOOC)-specific, course-specific and personal. Also, the relationships between affordances and limitations are presented in the light of the participants’ profiles.
Affordances
Concept (MOOC)-specific affordances
Several affordances emerged from the analysis can be classified as specific to the MOOC educational model. These include opportunities for peer learning and social interaction and forms of personalisation.
Opportunities for peer learning and social interaction
One clear affordance of this LMOOC repeatedly mentioned by the participants was the opportunities to learn from their peers. In particular, learning from other participants’ videos was reported by several participants. For instance, participant 44 said:
I think it’s watching videos and rating as I could learn about the structure of the presentation, the phrases and expressions that can be used in each part from their videos as well. Though it’s not a direct interaction, I could interact with their content (Participant 44)
In addition to learning from the presentation videos, the group learning design of this LMOOC allowed for peer learning to take place between group members in the process of working towards the final presentation. Participants felt that they could gain better understanding by exchanging ideas with other group members and that they could seek learning support from others when they needed it. Participant 86 who worked in a group reported:
They could help me when I did not understand the [English] instructions, so they were helpful. And for working as a group, exchanging ideas with them made me understand the course more (Participant 86)
Motivation to learn in a low-stake and free environment like LMOOCs has been a concerning issue. The participants in this LMOOC not only felt that working in a group helped them learn in the course, but also kept them motivated and contributed to their learning success, as two participants mentioned:
I learned about working as a group and my group members kept me motivated to continue learning in the course (Participant 19)
In a MOOC like this, we may not be able to contact the instructor directly, so other learners are those who could help me when I did not understand. It also helped me succeed in the course because if it was just me and the MOOC, I might not be this successful (Participant 28)
In addition to peer learning, participants in this study saw opportunities for having social interaction with other learners. Such interaction included both online interaction with other participants and their presentation videos as well as having face-to-face interaction with their group members. One design principle of this course was to allow participants to enrol with their peers from university and/or their workplace. A number of participants opted for this option and stated that doing so was facilitative for their learning process, as participant 76 indicated:
As we are from the same place, we could easily talk to each other face-to-face, allocate work and brainstorm on what sentences to choose (Participant 76)
It was clear that being in the same physical proximity was beneficial for learning in the LMOOC, an opportunity often not available in other LMOOCs. Moreover, one participant expressed enjoyment in interacting with other participant’s presentation videos, as stated:
I enjoyed commenting on both my friends’ videos and videos of others that I don’t know. But I tried to make my comment as neutral as possible, I mean not offensive. If something is good, I complement, if something needs improvement, I make suggestions (Participant 28)
However, the participants did not mention anything related to having direct interaction with other participants online via discussion forums or Facebook group.
Forms of personalisation
Various forms of personalisation were evident in this LMOOC. One of the principal design of the course was to offer personalised learning pathway (PLP) to each participant, and such a design was seen as beneficial for learning, something noted by several participants:
I think the pathway at the beginning was very useful because it pointed out areas where I needed to improve and I could improve based on that (Participant 25)
I actually liked the fact that this course was designed to fit with different [proficiency] levels and abilities of the learners.... this course gave me a specific plan based on my [language]ability. My ability was analysed and suggested accordingly (Participant 46)
Clearly, having a pathway to start with made the participants be more aware of their current ability and offered them a learning direction regarding the skills they needed to improve. While personalised learning was seen as useful, more prominent affordances of personalisation manifested at a personal learning level. It was clear that the participants were given freedom to tailor their learning itineraries in the way that was most suitable for their purposes. They were allowed to choose the topics and activities that are most relevant to their learning goals and to devise an individual learning plan (ILP) by themselves. Participant 32 highlighted the benefit of having freedom to create his own plan in this course:
Yes, the ILP allowed me to plan and develop what I really needed. For example, I have always had problems with pronunciation and vocabulary. So, I planned to practice and vocabulary and tried to learn about pronunciation using the software, look up new vocabulary online and watch a lot of videos (Participant 32)
Closely linked with having freedom, the participants expressed that the fact they could choose to participate in activities and work on topics most suitable for them gave them a sense of relevance and relatedness in their learning, as participant 37 reported.
It is beneficial for me because I could only choose what I needed the most in my learning journey…Also, in my work, I had to do a lot of data presentations [in English], so sometimes, I consulted the activities about choosing the graphic to help me. It is not just about completing the whole presentation, but about how I could use it immediately when I needed it in my work (Participant 37)
Such a choice that the participants had also encouraged them to be motivated to keep learning in the course. They attributed being able to learn and work on the topics that they liked and enjoyment as their two main contributing factors. Participant 76 explained how being able to choose her own topic motivated her:
I think it motivated me to learn and explore what I really wanted to know. For example, if we choose the topic that we like, we can do it well. It was also an ease for me to work on the topic I chose rather than an assigned topic (Participant 76)
Essentially, the participants in this study experienced several clear affordances of personalisation in terms of raising awareness regarding their ability, customising their learning journey as well as relating what they learned in the LMOOC with their immediate professional and educational situations.
Course-specific affordances
In addition to affordances that were specific to the MOOC concept, some of the participants reported affordances that were specific to this course.
Design principles of this course
The fact that the course was designed to start from being more structured at the beginning and being less structured towards the end was seen as beneficial for learning. In particular, the process learning design of the course and its content was perceived as useful by several participants. For example, participant 28 who finished all of the learning activities mentioned:
Actually, I do not think that the content was that difficult and I wanted to study in every activity to learn more about English and presentation. Since primary school, I was very poor in English, but this course was very clear and provided me with the structure of what to do and how to do it step by step. I felt that it was understandable and I can apply it to my real life, so I wanted to explore all of the activities (Participant 28)
Apart from course design, the participants stated that learning support they received in the form of introductory videos in their L1 was helpful for them in understanding the course structure.
The introductory videos in Thai were quite helpful for the understanding of the whole learning journey as well (Participant 46).
Overall, several affordances were perceived and actualised by the participants. These affordances included not only affordances inherent to LMOOC environment in general such as opportunities to interact with peers and their produced artefacts (videos), but also those that were related to the design specifications of this particular LMOOC. No affordances mentioned by the participants manifested at a personal level.
Limitations
Concept (MOOC)-specific limitations
Lack of affinity among the participants appears to be a limitation inherent to MOOCs in general. It was also mentioned by the participants in this study.
Lack of affinity
Despite peer learning being seen as an important affordance, lack of affinity appears to have been an obstacle for a number of participants. They cited not knowing other participants as the primary reason for not participating in the course or interacting with others. This also led to participants not participating in peer assessment activities and losing motivation to continue learning in the course. Participant 137, who dropped out in the middle of the course, remarked:
I felt that it was because I studied alone and I did not know anyone, so I had no motivation to continue the course to the end. Like in other MOOCs that I finished, I studied with my friends, so I had people to talk to about the course (Participant 137)
In addition to not knowing others, the absence of face-to-face interaction with other participants both prior to and during the course prevented them from interacting with or even simply initiating a conversation with their peers. Such a notion was mentioned by a few of the participants who opted to work individually. As participant 117 stated:
I think it is because I did not know anyone, so it would be quite difficult for me to start a conversation with them. Also, it’s an online course, so we didn’t have the chance to meet F2F and we also learned at different times. It was just difficult (Participant 117)
Course-specific limitations
In addition to lack of affinity, several limitations reported by the participants can be classified as specific to this course. These limitations include design principles of the course and the lack of teacher presence.
Design principles of this course
Though perceived as affordances by some participants, others saw the design of the course as an obstacle in their learning. One participant cited the complexity of learning activities and unclear instructions as factors hindering their participation in the course. Moreover, participant 136, who dropped out of the course, mentioned the mismatch between the course content and his needs as one of the reasons for not continuing:
I learned about creativity (in the videos), but other than that it didn't really match with what I wanted to learn (Participant 136)
Related to the design principle of the course, although the PLP was recommended to the participants based on their profiles and perceived abilities, two participants felt that the recommended PLP suggested too many activities for them, thus was too demanding to follow.
Lack of teacher presence
The final limitation reported by the participants was lack of teacher presence. As a self-directed LMOOC, the course was principally designed for self-study. Although some of the videos were taught by the course instructor, many learning materials were drawn from open educational resources and curated into a structured course. One participant who dropped out of the course saw such a design as a limitation to their learning:
Ummm... the content of this MOOC was already good, but I would like to see instructors in the videos as well. I did watch some videos that other learners appeared in (Participant 137)
Although some limitations above were linked to the LMOOC in general as well as design specifications of the course, more frequently mentioned limitations were related to the participants themselves both in terms of their language proficiency and learning preferences.
Personal limitations
Lack of proficiency
As all of the participants were EFL learners, English was seen as a challenge in the course. Participants saw their lack of proficiency as an obstacle in their learning. English instructions and videos from native speakers were seen as “too difficult” for them. Participant 80 mentioned in the interview that the course might not be at the right level for him:
I think the course was designed for people with quite good English skills, but I am just not at that level (Participant 80)
Although lack of proficiency was more relevant to personal limitations, rather than the limitations of the LMOOC itself, two participants did mention that having more Thai instructions and subtitles could have mitigated the language challenge they faced. Participant 21 stated in the interview that:
I think it is not too difficult, but I felt there should have been a translation or subtitles in each video and instruction, so that other people whose English was not so good could learn better (Participant 21)
Other participants added that they had to seek help from resources outside of the course such as Google Translate, but admitted the quality of the translation was not good enough to help them understand the instructions.
Relationships between perceived affordances and limitations and participants’ profiles
In analysing relationships among affordances and limitations, several patterns of hierarchical relationships emerged from the data. For affordances, two patterns of relationships were evident. First, opportunities for peer learning are often preceded by having interaction with other participants and being in the same physical proximity and peer learning often led to participants feeling motivated to continue learning in the course. Second, forms of personalisation, especially having freedom to learn, often led to participants being more motivated and feeling that what they learned was relevant to their immediate contexts. However, no relationships among perceived limitations were found. The relationships among the affordances are illustrated below (Fig. 4).
In triangulating the interview data with the participants’ profiles, several interesting patterns of perception emerged. Not surprisingly, affordances were often perceived and reported by the participants who completed the course. Peer learning was seen as an affordance by both participants who worked individually and as a group. However, individual participants tended to see peer learning as learning from peers’ products (watching videos), while group participants tended to view it as learning from interacting with peers. Forms of personalisation were regarded as an affordance by almost all of the participants who completed the course. It was, however, more prominent among the participants who opted to devise their own learning plan (ILP), indicating that self-directed participants were more likely to recognise such an affordance. In addition, the participants who enrolled in the course with their peers from the same universities and/or workplace emphasised the opportunities for having F2F interaction as one key affordance of this LMOOC design.
On the other hand, most of the limitations were reported by the participants who dropped out of the course. They were all individual participants and cited lack of affinity as their primary limitation. It was interesting, however, to find out that lack of proficiency was seen as a limitation by the participants who completed the course (Participants 223,280) and opted to work individually more than those who dropped out (Participant 14). On this measure alone, it is possible to say that lack of proficiency is not a significant factor preventing the participants from continuing learning in the course. Lack of teacher presence, however, was cited as a reason discouraging one participant, who was more familiar with the instructor-led learning environment, to continue with the course.