Assessment of Autonomous Learning Skill Through Multi-criteria Analysis for Online ADE Students in Moodle

Abstract

Quality and innovation are two key aspects in today’s higher educational systems. The rapid rise of online education in the European Higher Education Area context creates a challenge to maintain quality levels in learning processes and creates the need to develop new methodologies adapted to this type of education, in order to assess skills acquisition in a rigorous and participatory way. Quality guidelines from the European Model of Higher Education recommend the consideration of two key issues: Information management for decision-making processes and evaluation system capable of compiling student’s participation as well as autonomous learning processes. This research presents a methodology that evaluates the autonomous and online learning, using two statistical analyses: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Goal Programming. To validate this evaluation methodology, we have used seven tools provided by Moodle. The research is conducted on a group of 71 students participating in an online higher education degree in two subjects related to quantitative studies. The “Tutorials” and “Solved Exercises” have been the best-valued tools for the acquisition of this competition, followed by the “Tasks”. The joint assessments have been validated according to the degree of agreement of the students, using an index of closeness. The results suggest that the multi-criteria analysis can be very useful for the evaluation of competences in the European Higher Education Area.