Massive Open Online Courses Users Research Articles

Determining the post-adoptive intention of millennials for MOOCs: an information systems perspective

PurposeThis study aims to understand the learner behaviour of millennials for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the post-adoption stage by extending the theory of Unified Theory of Acceptance and User Technology 2 (UTAUT2) with expectancy confirmation model (ECM) along with personal innovativeness as the exogenous, satisfaction as a mediating and continued intention as an endogenous construct.Design/methodology/approachThis study applied a cross-sectional research design by using a survey method to collect primary data with a structured questionnaire. Convenience sampling was used to collect data from millennial MOOC users, and partial least square structural equation modelling method was applied for data analysis.FindingsThe results indicate that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivation influence satisfaction. Similarly, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, personal innovativeness and satisfaction influence the continued intention for MOOCs.Research limitations/implicationsIn terms of limitations, the study applied a cross-sectional research design that could lead to data collection bias. Similarly, the study used convenience sampling as the authors did not have access to the participant list of users from MOOC platforms.Practical implicationsThe research highlights various insights to all the stakeholders on improving MOOC satisfaction and enhance the continued intention for millennial learners.Originality/valueThe findings of this research bridge this gap by examining the post-adoption usage behaviour of MOOCs by extending the baseline model of UTAUT2 with personal innovativeness and integrating it with ECM.

Exploring Factors Influencing Technology Adoption among Generation Y: A Study of MOOC Users

The primary objective of this study is to investigate the factors affecting customers’ intention and usage of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in generation Y based on the UTAUT 2 (Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2). The paper opted for a quantitative method involving 150 MOOC (Skill Academy and My Skill) users collected by spreading an online questionnaire through social media. The data analysis method used is PLS-SEM. The results show that performance expectations, effort expectations, social influence, facilitating conditions, price values, and habitss have a positive influence on behavioral intention. However, hedonic motivation does not appear to have a significant effect on behavioral intention. Then behavioral intention has a significantly positive influence on usage behavior

The perceived labour market value of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Europe and the USA

ABSTRACT The advantages of higher education have received significant attention over time. However, recent research seems to challenge this assumption. It highlights that returns to education may be subject to inflation, may vary in relation to skills, and may not be equally distributed, thus posing new questions about the role of formal education. Against this background, the growing popularity of new forms of online education and training such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have emerged. Investigating the way different learners use MOOCs may contribute to a deeper understanding of the evolution of the labour market outcomes of both traditional and technologically-mediated educational qualifications. Based on 43 semi-structured interviews conducted with MOOC users in the USA and in Europe, this article explores the potential of MOOCs on the labour market. The positional competition approach can help frame the results, inasmuch as MOOCs emerge as ‘soft credentials’. These accessible and flexible educational tools seem to provide applicants in the job queue with additional resources, although their labour market value remains modest and ancillary to formal educational qualifications. From a long-term perspective, however, increasing reliance on this type of training may contribute to further shifting of responsibilities from collective actors to individual workers.

Learners’ satisfaction of courses on Coursera as a massive open online course platform: A case study

Online education has become more prevalent in the 21st century, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the major trends is the learning via Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which is increasingly present at many universities around the world these days. In these courses, learners interact with the pre-designed materials and study everything mostly by themselves. Therefore, gaining insights into their satisfaction of such courses is vitally important to improve their learning experiences and performances. However, previous studies primarily focused on factors that affected learners’ satisfaction, not on how and what the satisfaction was. Moreover, past research mainly employed the narrative reviews posted on MOOC platforms; very few utilized survey and interview data obtained directly from MOOC users. The present study aims to fill in such gaps by employing a mixed-methods approach including a survey design and semi-structured interviews with the participation of 120 students, who were taking academic writing courses on Coursera (one of the world-leading MOOC platforms), at a private university in Vietnam. Results from both quantitative and qualitative data showed that the overall satisfaction of courses on Coursera was relatively low. Furthermore, most learners were not satisfied with their learning experience on the platform, primarily due to inappropriate assessment, lack of support, and interaction with teachers as well as improper plagiarism check. In addition, there were moderate correlations between students’ satisfaction and their perceived usefulness of Coursera courses. Pedagogically, teachers’ feedback and grading, faster support from course designers as well as easier-to-use plagiarism checking tools are needed to secure learners’ satisfaction of MOOCs.

Continuance Intention to use MOOCs: The Effects of Psychological Stimuli and Emotions

This study investigates the impact of psychological stimuli on students’ continuance intention to use massive open online courses (MOOCs), through the mediation effects of emotions under a stimulus-organism-response framework. Perceived competition, perceived risk, and curiosity are the psychological stimuli. Four emotions (happiness, interest, sadness, and anxiety), enjoyment, and stress are considered as the organism. Continuance intention to use MOOCs for learning is the response. To test the hypotheses empirically, 574 valid responses were collected from individuals who claimed that they had learning experience on the Chinese University MOOC. This is a well-known, official online learning platform supported by the Chinese Education Ministry and has the largest number of active MOOC users in China. The study employs partial least squares structural equation modeling to validate the research model. The results show that perceived competition has both positive and negative effects, perceived risk has no significant effect, curiosity only has a beneficial effect, and the four emotions play important mediation roles. This research unveils the internal effect mechanisms of psychological factors and emotions on continuance intention in the context of online learning.

Mapping of Instructional Design of MOOC’s Elements

MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is an innovation in the field of online learning that has been popular since 2012. MOOC users during the COVID-19 pandemic increased dramatically, but the dropout rate for MOOC was also high. One of the things that causes the high dropout rate is the MOOC design. To get a good MOOC design, it is necessary to design an instructional design. Instructional design is a guide in designing instruction or learning stages to facilitate effective learning so that learning objectives can be achieved. Many examples of instructional design have been introduced in previous studies, one of which is "The 7Cs Learning Design Framework". In this research, a mapping of elements that are found in MOOC will be carried out into the category of MOOC features that are closely related because of the similarity of functions and properties with "The 7Cs Learning Design Framework". It is hoped that after this mapping has been carried out, system developers and MOOC instructors can focus more on a good MOOC design so as to maintain MOOC user retention and satisfaction.

Influence of MOOCs eWOM on the Number of Registrations and Completions

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) users continue to rise in number globally, and accordingly, the electronic word of mouth (eWOM) for MOOCs is an important source of information for MOOCs learners, but research on the effects of MOOCs eWOM is still lacking. Therefore, from the perspective of group size and group recognition in the MOOCs online review forum and the internal relationships in the MOOCs course learning forum, this paper studies the influence mechanism of MOOCs eWOM on the number of registrations and completions. First, according to the literature review, based on the number of online reviews, the online rating valence and eWOM publishers in the MOOCs online review forum, as well as the number of posts and the number of teaching assistants in the MOOCs course learning forum, research hypotheses are proposed in this study to construct a conceptual model. Second, Coursera is the typical MOOCs platform that is selected as the research object to obtain data from November 2018 to August 2019. Third, after preprocessing the data, on the basis of the Hausman test, the corresponding fixed effect of an econometric model is established, and Stata is used to process the data to verify the research hypotheses. Finally, according to the research conclusions related to eWOM, to improve the number of registrations and completions of MOOCs, development suggestions are proposed for MOOCs platform providers and MOOCs course providers, as well.

DETERMINING FACTORS FOR INSTRUCTORS IN THE USE OF MOOCS

The aim of this research is to examine the relationship between instructors’ use of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and their demographic characteristics. MOOC research in the literature is predominantly on students' attitudes and behaviors. However, there are fewer studies on instructors' attitudes and behaviors, which make up a significant portion of MOOC users. Therefore, the research data were collected from 181 instructors through an online questionnaire. As a result of the research, it was observed that the instructors of some faculties (Economics and Administrative Sciences, Science and Literature, Engineering Faculty) benefit more from MOOC providers. It has been determined that female instructors value the certificates earned from MOOCs more in business life. Moreover, it has been determined that instructors working at public and private sectors give importance to using MOOCs at the same level. It was also concluded that the MOOC utilization of instructors who are younger and in the first five years of their careers is higher.

Antecedents and outcomes of flow experience of MOOC users

PurposeThis paper aims to develop and empirically test a model of relationships between antecedents and outcomes of flow experience of users of massive open online courses (MOOC).Design/methodology/approachThe researchers surveyed individuals primarily from India, who had enrolled in at least one MOOC offered by MOOC providers such as Coursera, edX and FutureLearn. The data were collected from 310 individuals using an online questionnaire. The partial least squares technique of structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the reliability and validity of the data, and the study’s hypothesized relationships.FindingsThe study found support for identification of telepresence, challenge and skill as antecedents of flow experience. MOOC satisfaction and MOOC usage intention were found to be the outcomes of flow experience, as hypnotized. The study also found the mediating role of MOOC satisfaction in the relationship of flow experience and MOOC usage intention.Practical implicationsThe findings indicate that if the MOOC providers can orchestrate flow experience for MOOC users then that will increase the satisfaction of MOOC users, which will lead to increase in MOOC adoption.Originality/valueThe study makes the contribution towards better understanding of flow experience in the context of MOOC usage by identifying both antecedents and outcomes of flow experience. Further, it highlights the influencing role of flow experience on MOOC adoption.

A Study on Influence of Web Quality and Self Efficacy on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Technology Adoption by Extending the Utaut Model with Reference to Student MOOC Users

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is one of the most innovative ideas in modern learning methods. It helps people for autonomous study and to share globally excellent learning resources. Despite of many advantages in adopting MOOCs, many research studies have indicated that majority of MOOC users discontinues the course whose intentions of users are not clearly known. The purpose of this research is to find the influence the Web Quality (WQ) and Self Efficacy (SE) on massive open online courses technology adoption by extending the UTAUT model. Two new constructs Web Quality (WQ) and Self Efficacy (SE) were added to the existing UTAUT model constructs Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI), Facilitating Conditions (FC) and the behavioural intention to use MOOC is determined as per the model. The study was conducted among college students who use MOOC and hence the sampling technique used was purposive sampling. The statistical tools used for analysis of the data are cross-tabulation, regression and for this SPSS software was used. The research revealed that web quality (WQ), and Self efficacy (SE) has significant influence on behavioural intension to use MOOC. The implication of this research is that the service providers get more light on the important factors which influence the behavioural intention to use MOOCs and to know the technology acceptance of MOOC.

"The Cell" and Learning Analytics: Users Performance Analysis in the Module "Chemical Composition of the Cell and Biological Membranes"

INTRODUCTION: Learning Analytics tools aim to analyze data that allows the understanding of the learning process; its association with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) brings an opportunity for research into learning effectiveness, once MOOCs users produces digital footprints that can be used to understand their relationship with the content and environment. OBJECTIVES: To analyze the performance of users of "The Cell" in the module "Cell Chemical Composition and Biological Membranes" aiming to identify the major points that may have influenced their performance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: "Chemical Composition of the Cell and Biological Membranes" is a module of the MOOC "The Cell", a course designed into a 3D cell virtual model developed by the Laboratory of Educational Technologies of the Unicamp. The module is composed of textual content, challenge, training game, and assessment. "The Cell" has an embedded Statistical Analysis Module (SAM), an LA tool that collects data and has analysis tools focused on the student’s performance and learning process. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Between November of 2015 and November of 2018, SAM has registered 2858 interactions involving 1114 users in the module. The average time to perform the training game was 3.45 minutes, and there was a significant difference in the scores average comparing users who did the activity below and above the average time: 54.10 and 70.44 points, respectively. A similar result was noticed for the assessment session, users who complete the task faster scored 48.83 on average, while users who take more time scored 52.83 on average. The average score in the assessment of users who did or did not took the training game was 51.20 and 36.75, respectively. CONCLUSION: The average time spent to carry out the activities is directly related to performance; the training game acts as a preparation for the assessment, reflected in the note.

WEB ACCESSIBILITY OF MOOCS FOR ELDERLY STUDENTS: THE CASE OF TURKEY

Learning, eLearning and distance education has a significant function on the elderly for advancing well-being, which has indicated in the literature. In addition to this, e-learning provides an opportunity to become unified with the rest of society to older people. In this context, older people have extensive opportunities to raise the qualified life and enable lifelong learning and inclusion in learning communities by using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). The number of users over age 65 has more than doubled since 2000. Currently elderly users represent less than 10 % of MOOC users. Besides, the certain outcome of younger participants aging will raise the number of older people using the Internet the next decades. And, there is no study has been carried out on the accessibility of MOOCs for elderly users in Turkey context.

Indicators of Students’ Intention to Use Massive Open Online Courses for Academic Purposes

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have a considerable potential impact on teaching, learning, and traditional higher educational structures, according to many types of research. Several higher education institutions either through the specific development of MOOCs or the integration of existing MOOCs into their curriculum are swiftly implementing them on their campuses. To examine the MOOCs phenomenon more closely, this study explored the significant difference between MOOCs users and non-users in their intention to use MOOCs for academic purposes. It again explored the influence of awareness knowledge, how-to knowledge, perceived usefulness, actual usage, and attitude on intention to use MOOCs for academic purposes. The sample consisted of 190 postgraduate students. The analysis procedure made use of independent sample t-test and multiple regression analysis. The findings reveal a significant difference between users and non-users of MOOCs in their intentions to use MOOCs for academic purposes. It again indicated that all predictor variables significantly contribute to the prediction of intention to use MOOCs for academic purposes except how-to knowledge and actual usage. It also reveals that students’ intention to use MOOCs for academic purposes is raised by the perceived usefulness which reflects in their attitude. Awareness knowledge, in turn, incline the perceived usefulness of MOOCs to students signifying that a substantial amount of knowledge of MOOCs is a precursor to a higher level of intention to use.

A descriptive statistical analysis of the profiles of massive open online course users and non-users in India

The current paper presents our research regarding differences between massive open online course (MOOC) users and non-users. Extant literature, mostly in the Western and also Chinese contexts, has evidence regarding the demographic profiles of MOOC users. Limiting our research to the Indian context, we attempted to study MOOC-users and non-users using self-reported survey data. Our descriptive analysis allowed us to characterise the user base at micro-level and to find significant differences between users and non-users - among other things, age, education, general online efficacy, communicative online efficacy and self-directed learning preference emerge as significant distinguishers. These findings are on expected lines and in practical terms highlight some of the learner-level characteristics and capabilities that facilitate adoption of online learning through MOOCs in a developing country like India.

An improved algorithm for personalized recommendation on MOOCs

Purpose In the past few years, millions of people started to acquire knowledge from the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). MOOCs contain massive video courses produced by instructors, and learners all over the world can get access to these courses via the internet. However, faced with massive courses, learners often waste much time finding courses they like. This paper aims to explore the problem that how to make accurate personalized recommendations for MOOC users. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a multi-attribute weight algorithm based on collaborative filtering (CF) to select a recommendation set of courses for target MOOC users. Findings The recall of the proposed algorithm in this paper is higher than both the traditional CF and a CF-based algorithm – uncertain neighbors’ collaborative filtering recommendation algorithm. The higher the recall is, the more accurate the recommendation result is. Originality/value This paper reflects the target users’ preferences for the first time by calculating separately the weight of the attributes and the weight of attribute values of the courses.

The perspective of using MOOCs in journalism education: Case study of mobile journalism MOOC users' experiences

Through analysing massive open online courses (MOOC) participants' experiences and perceptions of a 20-week course in mobile journalism, this paper examines the potential obstacles, challenges and opportunities in providing education in this specific field. Results confirm the problematic low retention rate for MOOCs and show that this type of course demands more effort from participants by asking them to complete practical assignments away from the comfort of their homes. The content of the course, as well as quality communication with tutors is key for motivation and progress of participants in this MOOC. Consideration of technical resources for this type of remote training (smartphones and other equipment) is recommended, along with more interactive sessions that enhance the learning experience by connecting closer not only participants with tutors but participants with each other.

Critical reflection and dialogical learning design: moving MOOCs beyond unidirectional transmission of content

Distance education and e-learning has been around for some time now. The ubiquitous development of the internet (Sharples, 2007) has however made way for the emergence of new educational formats such as the much talked-about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Within MOOCs users have access to educational literature and tasks at all times, which allow users to fit the course into their own pace, place and Personal Learning Environment (Attwell 2007). Today MOOCs has spread across the globe, and in Denmark we now see institutions such as Aarhus University developing a new course with roots in the MOOC format, however without the ‘Massive’ part (Aarhus University, 2016). Over a 5 week period we conducted a netnographic (Kozinet, 2015) mixed methods research of the MOOC Blended Learning Essentials ( https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/blended-learning-gettingstarted/2 ) . Contrary to the acclaimed potentials of MOOCs, our research showed a pronounced lack of dialogue and a high degree of what Freire (1996) calls “the banking concept of education,” entailing a high amount of one-way knowledge transmission (Hoem, 2006). To circumvent these tendencies, the paper presents a case analysis and design framework for moving MOOCs beyond “the banking concept of education” and towards dialogue in ways that support critical thinking; a high-level cognitive skill essential to higher education (Laurillard, 2012).

Lessons learnt from a MOOC about social media for digital health literacy.

Nowadays, the Internet and social media represent prime channels for health information seeking and peer support. However, benefits of health social media can be reduced by low digital health literacy. We designed a massive open online course (MOOC) course about health social media to increase the students' digital health literacy. In this course, we wanted to explore the difficulties confronted by the MOOC users in relation to accessing quality online health information and to propose methods to overcome the issues. An online survey was carried out to assess the students' digital health literacy. This survey was one of the activities for the enrolled learners in an online course entitled "Social Media in Health Care" on "FutureLearn", one of the popular MOOC platforms. The course was hosted by Taipei Medical University, Taiwan. Data from a total of 300 respondents were collected through the online survey from 14 December 2015 to 10 January 2016. Most participants (61%) considered finding online health information is easy or very easy, while 39% were unsure or found it difficult to retrieve online health information. Most (63%) were not sure about judging whether available information can be used for making health decisions. This study indicates a demand for more training to increase skills to improve the capability of health consumers to identify trustworthy, useful health information. More research to understand the health information seeking process will be crucial in identifying the skillsets that need to be further developed. MOOCs about digital health can be a great source of knowledge when it comes to studying patients' needs.

The real component of virtual learning: motivations for face-to-face MOOC meetings in developing and industrialised countries

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) offer the possibility of entirely virtual learning environments, with lectures, discussions, and assignments all distributed via the internet. The virtual nature of MOOCs presents considerable advantages to students in terms of flexibility to learn what they want, when they want. Yet despite their virtual focus, some MOOC users also seek to create face-to-face communities with students taking similar courses or using similar platforms. This paper aims to assess the learner motivations behind creation of these offline communities. Do these face-to-face meetings represent an added extra to the learning experience, with students taking advantage of the context of the MOOCs to create new personal and professional connections? Or, are offline meetups filling a gap for students who feel that not all learning can take place online? We also assess the extent to which these patterns vary between developing and industrialised regions, thus testing the claim that MOOCs are helping to democratise access to education around the world. Our research is based on a unique source of socially generated big data, drawn from the website ‘meetup.com’, which gives us a data set of over 4000 MOOC related events taking place in over 140 countries around the world over a two year period. We apply a mixed methods approach to this data, combining large-scale analysis with more in-depth thematic hand coding, to more fully explore the reasons why some learners add a ‘real’ component to their virtual learning experience.