Abstract—Distance education has been widely used in
universities due to the outbreak of Covid-19. SPOCs (Small
Private Online Courses) have high enrollment and completion
rates in higher education due to their ability to provide students
with personalized deep learning. This study aims to investigate
the learning effect of SPOCs and further explores the reasons
that affect its effectiveness. The study found that: a) there is a
certain difference in the learning effect between SPOCs and
face-to-face courses; b) the learning effect in SPOCs can be
effectively improved by enhancing the interest in learning, and
c) the teacher’s internal and external assistance can
significantly improve the learning effect. The study suggested
that the “Hard-Pure” SPOCs needs more detailed course design,
enhancing students’ motivations and learning interests in SPOC
courses, and strengthening teachers’ assistance to students in
and out of class.
Index Terms—Distance education, SPOCs, Biglan model,
learning effects, face-to-face.
Jining Han is with the Faculty of Education, Southwest University,
Chongqing, 400715, China (e-mail: jininghan@swu.edu.cn).
Jiayi Shi is with the Center for Education Policy, Southwest University,
Chongqing, 400715, China (e-mail: 18883765756@163.com).
Cite: Jining Han and Jiayi Shi, "Comparing the Effects of SPOC and Face-to-Face Courses and Factors Influencing the Effects," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 565-570, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).