Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide quality higher education resourcesfor people around the world. It allows massive number of learners to gain access to free, virtual based open educational subjects offered by accredited and world recognized top ranking institutional. However, numerous studies show that MOOCs success was marred by low completion and high dropout rates.This studyintends to identify and analyse the literature on the social support related factors influencing the utilization of MOOCs. Results from the review show that the relevant and related researchesare extremely limited which call for further studies to be done on influence of social support on MOOCs usage. The review reveals that emotional support is the most identified social support factor included in MOOC studies from various perspectives followed by informational support. Tangible support and belonging support are the least to be included in the selected studies. This review reveals that more researches are required to identify the impact of social support factors in influencing the utilization of MOOCs among learners.
Highlights
Over the past decade, many higher learning institutions have embarked in the new paradigm shift of offering online courses via various formats
Social support influence in MOOCs continues to be a new topic of study, proven by the limited literature found in this review
Our contribution to this area of study is mainlymotivated by the curiosity to study the influence of social support factors in the utilization of MOOCs among learners
Summary
Many higher learning institutions have embarked in the new paradigm shift of offering online courses via various formats. Top MOOC providers have offered free courses as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility program to anyone whose education has been greatly impacted by the pandemic. MOOCs are currently seen as the perfect alternative to quality education, past studies showed that MOOCs are flawed with low completion and high dropout rates (Yang et al, 2013; Khalil and Ebner, 2014; Hussain et al, 2016; Liyanagunawardena et al, 2014; Veletsianos and Shepherdson, 2016). Student dropout in MOOCs is a keyinterest to be concerned about in the higher learning institutions and among policy makers which was mainly triggered by issuesbeyond the control of the institutions (Aldowah et al, 2019).Out of the 90% dropout rates, among the reasons given were due to having no one to turn to and feeling of isolation (Hew and Cheung, 2014; Khalil and Ebner, 2014)
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