Yeomans Michael, Stewart Brandon M, Mavon Kimia, Kindel Alex, Tingley Dustin, Reich Justin
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Int J Artif Intell Educ. 2018 Dec;28(4):553-589. doi: 10.1007/s40593-017-0161-0. Epub 2017 Nov 29.
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) attract diverse student bodies, and course forums could potentially be an opportunity for students with different political beliefs to engage with one another. We test whether this engagement actually takes place in two politically-themed MOOCs, on education policy and American government. We collect measures of students' political ideology, and then observe student behavior in the course discussion boards. Contrary to the common expectation that online spaces often become echo chambers or ideological silos, we find that students in these two political courses hold diverse political beliefs, participate equitably in forum discussions, directly engage (through replies and upvotes) with students holding opposing beliefs, and converge on a shared language rather than talk-ing past one another. Research that focuses on the civic mission of MOOCs helps ensure that open online learning engages the same breadth of purposes that higher education aspires to serve.
大规模在线开放课程（MOOCs）吸引了各种各样的学生群体，课程论坛可能为持有不同政治信仰的学生提供相互交流的机会。我们在两门以政治为主题的MOOC课程中进行测试，一门是关于教育政策，另一门是关于美国政府，以检验这种交流是否真的会发生。我们收集了学生政治意识形态的相关数据，然后观察他们在课程讨论板上的行为。与通常认为网络空间往往会变成回音室或意识形态孤岛的预期相反，我们发现这两门政治课程中的学生持有多样化的政治信仰，公平地参与论坛讨论，直接与持有相反信仰的学生互动（通过回复和点赞），并形成一种共同语言，而不是各说各话。关注MOOCs公民使命的研究有助于确保开放的在线学习能够实现高等教育所追求的广泛目标。
