THE ISSUE
·
Millions of people sign up for free online
higher education courses offered by top-tier institutions, but only a small percentage
of registrants earn a completion certificate.
WHAT MAKES STUDENTS STICK WITH A MOOC
· There was a study done (Brasher, 2016) that examined a unique dataset
of 44 MOOCs on the Coursera platform, comprised mostly of Stanford courses in
science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The researchers evaluated 2.1 million student
observations across 2,900 lectures to determine critical patterns of
enrollment, engagement, persistence, and completion;
·
The researchers reported some surprising findings, including the following:
o The
early birds - students who signed up for courses a month or more in advance were actually far less likely to participate than those who signed up just before the course began. Those who
signed up 1-3 weeks before the course began were the most likely to succeed;
o The
students with the highest probability of completion, were
those who agreed to take a pre-course survey;
o When
asked in the survey what their motivation was for taking the course, the
majority of respondents cited relevance to their job or a substantial interest
in the subject matter. However, those
who said the prestige of the university (offering the course) was their highest
motivating factor watched the highest percentage of lectures;
o With
regard to engagement in the course material, lecture titles using the words “intro,”
“overview” and “welcome” had a much higher rate of being watched than those
that included summative words like “review” or “conclusion.” Videos labeled “exercise” had the largest
negative association;
o The
length of a lecture seemed to have no impact on whether students chose to
watch it. The prevailing thought has been
that breaking up lectures into shorter videos was more attractive to students,
but the researchers did not find that to be the case;
o Video
lectures posted early in the week were more likely to be watched than those
posted later in the week. And, emails from the instructor to notify students of
a new lecture did not induce them to watch.
COMPLETION IS THE WRONG MEASURE OF SUCCESS FOR MOOCs
According to Clark (2016), it is a mistake to
describe people who stop at some point in a MOOC as “dropouts.” He argued that “dropouts” is the language used by institutions.Clark says we can have university dropouts but MOOCs are open, free and
online experiences. With MOOCs the amazing numbers that we should be talking
about are the millions that “dropped in”. Including many that dropped in to
simply have a look, often just curious, others want a brief taster, just an
introduction to the subject, or just some familiarity with the topic. Further into the MOOC, some find the level
inappropriate or (because many MOOCs students are adults and not 18 year old
undergraduates), find that everyday life (job, kids, etc) makes them too busy to
continue. Clark described a survey taken
at the beginning of the University of Derby’s “Dementia” MOOC. Of the 775 learners asked whether they expected to fully engage with the course, 477 (58%) said “yes”
but 258 (33% or one third) stated that they “[did] not intend to complete the course.” Clark pointed out that for these reasons, he
and others, have long argued that course completion is not the way to judge a
MOOC. As such, some (e.g., Hadi &
Gagen, 2016) have come up with new models for assessing MOOCs.
TARGETING COURSE COMPLETION AMONG COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY
VS MOOC STUDENTS
Course completion makes sense when you have paid upfront
for your University course and made a huge investment in terms of money,
effort, relocation, and so on. In open,
free, and online courses, there is no such commitment, risks, and
investments. Clark (2016) argues a
different approach to the measurement of the impact of MOOCs – one based not on
“completion” but “meaningful learning.”
This acknowledges that MOOCs’ diverse audience wants and achieves different
things and that this should be recognized. The bottom line is that people who do MOOCs
really want to learn; they are not largely motivated by pieces of paper or even
completion. College/University programs
are more like single, long-haul flights while MOOCs are more like train
journeys, where some passengers want to travel the whole line but most get on
and off along the way.
WHAT NEXT
To explore available MOOCs and find one suitable for you, whether for the long haul or just a short journey,
please click here.
REFERENCES
·
Brasher, Joan. Feb. 26, 2016. What makes
students stick with a MOOC? Available
online at: https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2016/02/26/what-makes-students-stick-with-a-mooc/
·
Clark, Donald. April 11, 2016. MOOCs: Completion
is the wrong measure of course success and a better way has already been
suggested. Available online at: https://www.class-central.com/report/moocs-course-completion-wrong-measure/
·
Hadi, Syed Munib and Gagen, Phillip. Feb., 2016.
New model for measuring MOOCs completion rates. Available online at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296705001_New_model_for_measuring_MOOCs_completion_rates
Posted by Dr. Nat Tuivavalagi
