Undergraduate Students’ Experiences of the Use of MOOCs for Learning at a Cambodian University

Abstract

Currently, some universities in Cambodia are exploring the usage of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which can support education by allowing cost-free independent learning for university students. For effective implementation, it is fundamental to understand the current Cambodian ecosystem, how universities implement MOOCs for teaching, and how students use them for learning. Due to a current gap in the literature on this matter, this research work aims to investigate students’ awareness of MOOCs, usage, and difficulties encountered with their adoption for learning. This research work is a case study of a university in Cambodia, and it adopts a mixed-mode approach involving a quantitative questionnaire, followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews. Currently, many students are not aware of MOOCs, and regarding those using them, they report a low level of organized effort, which points out to the fact that students are in general not very organized and systematic in the way they approach learning using MOOCs. Furthermore, a major issue still lies in the way these courses are implemented in the curriculum and the learning activities, underlined by the type of ICTs affordances currently exploited by the usage of MOOCs for learning.

Keywords

• Cambodia
• higher education
• MOOCs
• awareness
• ICTs affordances
• approach to learning