The evolution of cMOOC learners’ resource use behaviour

Abstract

ABSTRACT As a representative pedagogical practice of Connectivism, cMOOC emphasises learners’ connected learning based on various types of resources. By systematically classifying the types of resource-use behaviours in connectivist learning, we measure the level of resource-use behaviours of each learner based on 61,496 real-time behavioural data and 544,073 words of textual content of the learners on the cMOOC platform, to portray the evolution of the resource-use behaviours of the learners as a whole. Then, the evolutionary pattern of individual learners’ resource use behaviours was revealed through lagged sequence analysis. It was found that the pre-determined resource use behaviours showed a decreasing trend as the number of course weeks increased; the generative resource use behaviours of recommended resources, outcome resources and interactive resources climbed up to the peak in the first and middle stages of the course, and then declined gradually; the evolution of the various types of resource use behaviours in the mid-and late stages of the course showed the phenomenon of “9-week recovery”; learners tend to inherit traditional resource use behaviours and tend to mutate resource use behaviours under the new curriculum concept. The results further develop the understanding of resource use behaviours in connectivist learning theory.