Politically-themed MOOCs attract U.S. students representing a diverse range of political beliefs across the ideological spectrum¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2018 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Both courses attracted students spanning the ideological spectrum, the first direct evidence of ideological diversity in MOOCs. → Yeomans 2018 q2 i? The central tendency of the American Government sample was more left-leaning than the population at large, though the range of views was broad. → Yeomans 2018

Evidence¶

Yeomans 2018¶

Yeomans, M., Stewart, B. M., Mavon, K., Kindel, A., Tingley, D., & Reich, J. (2018). The Civic Mission of MOOCs: Engagement across Political Differences in Online Forums. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education, 28, 553–589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40593-017-0161-0

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Survey-based descriptive analysis of U.S. pre-course survey respondents (Saving Schools n = 1,315; American Government n = 1,258) compared against nationally representative polls. The authors state this is "the first direct evidence for ideological diversity" in MOOCs, though the American Government sample's central tendency was more left-leaning than the population.

"That is, both classes managed to attract students that represent a diverse range of political beliefs, across the ideological spectrum. Though the demographic diversity of MOOCs has been well-established, to our knowledge, this is the first direct evidence for ideological diversity."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Forum comments show little evidence of ideology-based sorting, indicating engagement across political difference — related
• Political ideology shows essentially no relationship with total forum activity in politically-themed MOOCs — related
• Course-created forum threads in these MOOCs showed balanced ideological contribution, with only small conservative-leaning exceptions — related
• Structural topic models show partisan differences in topic use amount to less than 2% of all MOOC forum posts — related
• Partisan language is only weakly predictive of ideology in MOOC forum posts, suggesting linguistic convergence — related
• Upvote assortativity by ideology appeared in American Government but not Saving Schools, with sorting stronger among conservatives — related