So this is my first in a series of blog posts over the coming weeks that explores possible avenues for research investigation for the MSc dissertation. Where do I begin? We have studied such a diverse range of interesting topics related to BOE throughout this course. However, I do not want my personal preferences of topic to influence my decision of what area of BOE to explore for the dissertation. Yes, it is important to chosen a topic that is of interest to you, in order to maintain your focus throughout the project and produce research of the highest quality. However, more important than this, in my opinion, is the need to conduct research into topics of BOE from which there is a genuine gap in our current understanding and/or body of literature. That way, I believe there is the greatest opportunity to make a real and significant contribution to the educational research field whilst driving forward our understanding of the BOE domain.
So I have begun my search for a dissertation with an entirely open mind, by searching objectively in Google Scholar for recent studies on “online education research” to see what are the latest trends and identified research gaps for further studies to address. An interesting article by Gasevic et al. (2014) has recently considered the future research directions of the MOOC (massively open online course) within BOE (I thoroughly enjoyed the MOOC that I completed and critiqued for a previous BOE module). This paper, which was published in the peer-reviewed e-journal The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning in 2014, provides a comprehensive overview of the MOOC research domain whilst making a number of key recommendations for future research. One noteworthy suggestion was that “research needs to come up with theoretical underpinnings that will explain factors related to social aspects in MOOCs that have a completely new context and offer practical guidance of course design and instruction” (p. 1). This appears to be a promising potential avenue from which an MSc dissertation could be developed, as it appears to be of substantial scale, it offers a specific research context (social aspects of the MOOC) and has implications for theoretical development and practical application. In the next blog post in this series, I will therefore look at how much research has been conducted into the social aspect of MOOCs and what are the specific gaps in the literature or niche opportunities to be explored.
References
Gasevic, Dragan, et al. “Where is research on massive open online courses headed? A data analysis of the MOOC Research Initiative.” The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 15.5 (2014).
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