Examining a SPOC experiment in a foundational course: design, creation and implementation

SPOC is being practiced and studied in an increasingly wider educational community. The literature has concentrated on reporting its pedagogical effectiveness measured by self-reported data of isolating learning components at the implementation phase within the domain of the immediate course site. By using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, this study measures the educational efficacy of a SPOC program for a foundational course by multiple sources of objective data derived from substantial SPOC learning parameters, examines various problems throughout the pedagogical discourse and probes beyond the course level to reveal contextual factors beneath the surface problems. Major findings include (1) learning SPOC has had a statistically insignificant correlation with participants’ academic outcome; (2) componential problems in the SPOC program could be traced to inherent deficiencies in its design, creation and implementation, which are rooted in contextual factors at levels of system, institution, faculty and course. The study does not intend to determine whether SPOC is effective or not, but hopes to demonstrate how a plethora of variables could conspire to trivialize the potential of a major curriculum renewal opportunity and inform future endeavors of optimizing SPOC environment in similar and dissimilar contexts.