Massive Open Online Courses In Education Research Articles

The Impact of Motivation on MOOC Retention Rates: A Systematic Review

This systematic review investigates the effectiveness of motivational strategies on learner engagement and retention rates in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, we analyzed 140 studies published between 2014 and 2023 from key academic databases. The objective was to identify and evaluate motivational strategies that significantly reduce MOOC dropout rates. Our findings reveal that personalized learning, interactive content, and peer collaboration are strongly correlated with increased learner engagement and persistence. These strategies align well with learners' intrinsic goals, enhancing their educational experience and adherence to courses. The review also identifies gaps, such as the need for longitudinal studies and culturally tailored motivational strategies, offering a refined agenda for future research in MOOC education. This study contributes to the field by systematically synthesizing existing research, providing new insights into effective educational strategies, and highlighting areas for improvement in MOOC design and implementation. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2024-SIED1-08 Full Text: PDF

Digitising diabetes education for a safer Ramadan: Design, delivery, and evaluation of massive open online courses in Ramadan-focused diabetes education

AimsRamadan-focused diabetes education is critical to facilitate safer Ramadan fasting amongst Muslim people living with diabetes. We present the design, delivery, and evaluation of two parallel massive open online courses (MOOCs) in Ramadan-focused diabetes education for people with diabetes and HCPs. MethodsTwo Ramadan-focused diabetes education MOOCs were developed and delivered for Ramadan 2023: one for HCPs in English, and another for people with diabetes in English, Arabic and Malay. A user-centred iterative design process was adopted, informed by user feedback from a 2022 pilot MOOC. Evaluation comprised a mixed-methods evaluation of pre- and post-course user surveys. ResultsThe platform was utilised by people with diabetes and their family, friends and healthcare professionals. Overall, a total of 1531 users registered for the platform from 50 countries, 809 started a course with a 48% subsequent completion rate among course starters. Qualitative analysis showed users found the course a user-friendly and authoritative information source. In the HCP MOOC, users reported improved post-MOOC Ramadan awareness, associated diabetes knowledge and ability to assess and advise patients in relation to their diabetes during Ramadan (p<0.01). ConclusionsWe demonstrate the potential of MOOCs to deliver culturally tailored, high-quality, scalable, multilingual Ramadan-focused diabetes education to HCPs and people with diabetes.

Data-driven analytics for student reviews in China's higher vocational education MOOCs: A quality improvement perspective.

Higher vocational education is the core component of China's national education system and shoulders the mission of cultivating high-skilled and applied talents. The wide application of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has effectively improved the curriculum system of China's higher vocational education. In the meantime, some MOOCs suffer from poor course quality. Therefore, from the perspective of sustainable course quality improvement, we propose a data-driven framework for mining and analyzing student reviews in China's higher vocational education MOOCs. In our framework, we first mine multi-level student demands hidden in MOOC reviews by combining web crawlers and text mining. Then we use an artificial neural network and the KANO model to classify the extracted student demands, thereby designing effective and sustainable MOOC quality improvement strategies. Based on the real data from China's higher vocational education MOOCs, we validate the effectiveness of the proposed data-driven framework.

Improving Massive Open Online Course Quality in Higher Education by Addressing Student Needs Using Quality Function Deployment

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are playing an increasingly important role in higher education. However, some MOOCs still suffer from low quality, which hinders the sustainable development of higher education. Course characteristics reflect students’ needs for online learning and have a significant impact on the quality of MOOCs. In the course improvement process, existing research has neither improved the MOOC quality from the perspective of student needs nor has it considered resource constraints. Therefore, to deal with this situation, we propose a student-needs-driven MOOC quality improvement framework. In this framework, we first map students’ differentiated needs for MOOCs into quality characteristics based on quality function deployment (QFD). Then, we formulate a mixed-integer linear programming model to produce MOOC quality improvement policies. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is verified by real-world data from China’s higher education MOOCs. We also investigate the impacts of budget, cost, and student needs on student satisfaction. Our results revealed that to significantly improve student satisfaction, the course budget needs to be increased by a small amount or the course cost needs to be greatly reduced. Our research provides an effective decision-making reference for MOOC educators to improve course quality.

Unlocking teachers’ potential: MOOCLS, a visualization tool for enhancing MOOC teaching

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are revolutionizing online education and have become a popular teaching platform. However, traditional MOOCs often overlook learners' individual needs and preferences when designing learning materials and activities, resulting in suboptimal learning experiences. To address this issue, this paper proposes an approach to identify learners' preferences for different learning styles by analyzing their traces in MOOC environments. The Felder–Silverman Learning Style Model is adopted as it is one of the most widely used models in technology-enhanced learning. This research focuses on developing a reliable predictive model that can accurately identify learning styles. Based on insights gained from our model implementation, we propose MOOCLS (MOOC Learning Styles), an intuitive visualization tool. MOOCLS can help teachers and instructional designers to gain significant insight into the diversity of learning styles within their MOOCs. This will allow them to design activities and content that better support the learning styles of their learners, which can lead to higher learning engagement, improved performance, and reduction in time to learn.

What drives art education massive open online courses continuance intention? Exploring determinants from value–software–hardware–design perspective

ABSTRACT Massive open online courses (MOOC) have become important in the learning process and have been adopted in higher education, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, few studies investigated MOOC continuance intention (CI) for arts disciplines. Thus, an integrated framework was proposed based on the expectation–confirmation model (ECM) and value–software–hardware–design system perception framework, focusing on the exploration of the potential factors of MOOC CI for art education taking music education as the context. A questionnaire-type survey was used, and responses from university students were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings reveal that perceived music familiarity (PMF), perceived emotional value (PEV), and perceived user interface design (PUID) positively influence music MOOC CI. In addition, expectation–confirmation factors (i.e. confirmation, perceived usefulness of individual learning, and satisfaction) not only considerably affect CI but also play partially mediating roles between music MOOC CI and perception factors (i.e. PMF, PEV, and PUID). Accordingly, the ECM is extended in the music MOOC context. Moreover, the results reveal that personality traits fail to moderate CI, which denotes no significant difference across groups. The findings present several implications for researchers and practitioners in the MOOC, music and arts education, and learning system design in the context of higher education.

Guidelines and strategies for fostering and enhancing self-directed online learning

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to provide practical instructional design strategies to foster and enhance learners’ online self-directed learning skills and abilities; especially when accessing massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other forms of open educational resources and OpenCourseWare (OCW). In addition to attempting to understand self-directed online learning, a series of studies was conducted to explore how to motivate learners and enhance students’ self-management and self-monitoring skills in MOOCs. This article offers 15 practical guidelines for fostering learners’ self-directed online learning (SDOL) based on the authors’ past research, including extensive literature reviews, surveys, dozens of MOOC instructor and learner interviews, and many course content analyses. Detailed explanations and examples are provided to help readers understand each of the 15 individual strategies. It is hoped that these instructional design guidelines will be adopted by instructional designers of MOOCs as well as practitioners in their MOOC teaching practices.

Formation mechanism of popular courses on MOOC platforms: A configurational approach

Popular courses are representative of high-quality courses on MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) platforms. However, current research on the formation mechanism of popular courses is rare. Thus, a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is adopted to explore configurations of MOOC quality elements for popular courses on MOOC platforms. This study selects courses on the Coursera platform as the research object. Unique datasets of 272 observations and 261 observations before and after the outbreak of pandemic, respectively, are used to investigate for a better understanding of the role of quality elements in forming popular courses. Three key findings are revealed. First, the configurations for MOOC popular courses differ from those of nonpopular courses, suggesting an asymmetric view of causality that underpins MOOC quality. Second, parsimonious configurations emergent from complex interactions among eight MOOC quality elements which are selected from three aspects of MOOC course arrangement, MOOC teaching faculty arrangement, and MOOC learner reviews, suggesting causality of equifinality that produces a popular course both before and after the outbreak of pandemic. Notably, the role of the professional title of MOOCs teachers becomes more important for forming popular courses after COVID-19. Third, although the number of MOOC teachers appears as a peripheral element along with the number of long reviews as a core element in all configurations for popular courses, they need the presence of other quality elements to form popular courses, suggesting a conjunction between quality elements. All findings provide implications not only for MOOC providers to regard popular courses as a result of configurations of MOOCs quality elements, but also for further research on fsQCA in course quality on MOOC platforms.

Special aspects of using Big Data in the learning process

ABSTRACT The paper examines the special aspects of using Big Data technology in education. The population was made up of 356 third-year university students. To study Big Data technology, a questionnaire was used where respondents rated: cloud technology; apps; Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and digital learning platforms. The study suggested that the education sector is ambitiously applying Big Data technology, both online and offline. All surveyed respondents use apps in Big Data learning and analysis: 73.03% use Moodle, 67.13% use Zoom, 65.17% use Quizlet, 50.84% use Skype, and 35.11% use Slack. MOOCs in education are used by 75% of respondents. Digital learning platforms are used by all respondents. All students use cloud technology. When dealing with Big Data technologies, students preferred apps (8.9 ± 1.33) instead of the cloud (6.9 ± 0.11). Students believe that the important factors for using Big Data in the learning process include: quality of information (85.96%); interest (77.81%); instructor’s support (66.85%). The research findings make it possible to integrate Big Data technology into the learning process, thus improving learning outcomes and providing greater speed in processing reliable and meaningful data.

Continuance Intention of Massive Open Online Course Learners in Higher Education: A Sustainable Development Initiative

This study focuses on higher education institutions in Metro Manila, Philippines, with their initiative to use and adopt Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) by analyzing the continuance intention to use MOOC platforms among students or learners. This recently gained popularity due to emergency remote learning in Metro Manila, the pandemic’s epicenter. This study also aims to understand the transformative impact of MOOC education on traditional and online learning. In addition, the study utilized survey research with 122 MOOC learners via purposive sampling, given the nature and composition of the respondents. The data collected were analyzed using the structural equation modeling-path analysis to substantiate the hypotheses using the extended Technology Acceptance Model. The relationship between attitude to continuance intention and continuance intention to transformative impact was significant. However, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and motivation were insignificant. It can be implied from the study the changing values of learners and students during the pandemic. Learning should not be an option but a way of life regardless of the circumstances and complement traditional learning. Finally, the study shows that the integration of MOOCs is the next big thing in global education, an impact on the school’s contribution to sustainable development goals through MOOC coverage by identifying the continuance intention among students and learners.

Interest in Educational Data and Barriers to Data Use Among Massive Open Online Course Instructors.

Higher education instructors constantly rely on educational data to assess and evaluate the behavior of their students and to make informed decisions such as which content to focus on and how to best engage the students with it. Massive open online course (MOOC) platforms may assist in the data-driven instructional process, as they enable access to a wide range of educational data that is gathered automatically and continuously. Successful implementation of a data-driven instruction initiative depends highly on the support and acceptance of the instructors. Yet, our understanding of instructors’ perspectives regarding the process of data-driven instruction, especially with reference to MOOC teaching, is still limited. Hence, this study was set to characterize MOOC instructors’ interest in educational data and their perceived barriers to data use for decision-making. Taking a qualitative approach, data were collected via semi-structured interviews with higher education MOOC instructors from four public universities in Israel. Findings indicated that the instructors showed great interest mostly in data about social interactions between learners and about problems with the MOOC educational resources. The main reported barriers for using educational data for decision-making were lack of customized data, real-time access, data literacy, and institutional support. The results highlight the need to provide MOOC instructors with professional development opportunities for the proper use of educational data for skilled decision-making.

Youth Perception of the Usage of Wearable Technology in Technical MOOC Education

Analysing youth learners' perception of the usage of wearable technology in technical education is reflected as the starting point towards a more effective and engaging learning environment. Previous research highlighted that one of the requirements for designing an engaging technical Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) is to include a practice-oriented learning mode into its course structure. Therefore, this study aims to identify the learners' perception of the use of wearable technology in supporting the teaching and learning process specifically for technical course. This study adopted the case study methodology approach with quantitative analysis. The instruments used in this study include technical MOOC and wearable technology. A total of 375 engineering youth learners involved in this study and the data were analysed using descriptive and parametric testing. The survey results reflected that the learning materials produced by wearable technology do contribute towards positive perception in increasing the level of student's engagement with the learning process. Among key recommendations for future study are to implement the use of wearable technology for designing and developing other subjects as well.

Emotionally Engaged Learners Are More Satisfied with Online Courses

Research on massive open online courses (MOOCs) has tended to focus on outcome indicators valued in traditional higher education settings, particularly achievement and completion. This study highlights the differences between MOOCs and credit-bearing university courses and shifts this focus to an alternative outcome indicator—learner satisfaction. In this study, engagement is identified as an important antecedent of learner satisfaction and is conceptualised and operationalised as a multidimensional construct. This study built three regression models to identify the relative importance of behavioural, cognitive, emotional, and social engagement for learner satisfaction after controlling for personal characteristics unrelated to the criteria of good teaching. The analysis showed that engagement explained approximately 20% of the variance in learner satisfaction with MOOCs. Emotional engagement was more influential for predicting learner satisfaction than cognitive engagement and behavioural engagement. Social engagement had no significant effect on learner satisfaction. Demographics (age, education level, and origin) and motivation were of limited utility in predicting learner satisfaction with MOOCs, accounting for 4% and 2% of variance, respectively. Based on research findings, the article presents the following propositions: (1) configure the MOOC teaching and learning environment in a way that enhances emotional engagement; (2) statistically adjust for age, education level, origin, and motivation when interpreting learner satisfaction results; and (3) monitor the level of emotional engagement and implement educational interventions to provide support for emotional disengagers.

MOOC learners' time‐investment patterns and temporal‐learning characteristics

AbstractBackgroundFailure to effectively organize and manage learning time is an important factor influencing online learners' performance. Investigation of time‐investment patterns for online learning will provide educators with useful knowledge of how learners engage in and regulate their online learning and support them in tailoring online course design and teaching. However, understanding of how learners invest and manage their time during online learning remains limited.ObjectivesThis study aims to discover the typical time‐investment patterns of MOOC learners and their temporal‐learning characteristics based on a systematic time‐investment analysis framework and their relationship with learning performance.MethodsBased on a proposed time‐investment‐analysis framework, this study applied statistical, cluster and lag sequential analyses to investigate learners' time‐investment patterns and their relationships with learning performance, session time allocation, and learning sequences by analysing the learning data from 12,463 participants of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in China.Results and ConclusionsSeven time‐investment patterns of MOOC learners were defined, and learning performance was found to differ among them. Further analysis shows that high performers invested time throughout the whole course and allocated time to multiple activities, exam‐takers performed better in time management and produced more behavioural sequences related to cognitive strategy and recourse use, and learners’ motivation and prior knowledge affected the management and effectiveness of their time investment.ImplicationsThe results support the recognition and evaluation of online learning time‐investment patterns and suggest relevant cues for improving MOOC design and teaching.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) Acceptance: The Role of Task-Technology Fit (TTF) for Higher Education Sustainability

The aim of the present study was to narrow the gap in the literature on the adoption of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and the role of task-technology fit (TTF), which influences student satisfaction, academic performance, and the long-term viability (sustainability) of MOOCs in higher education. While researchers have examined MOOC acceptance in a variety of contexts, the role of TTF as a mediating variable in evaluating education sustainability has not been explored using the technology acceptance model (TAM). As a result, the aim of this study was to create a new paradigm by combining two theories: TTF and TAM. Therefore, this study surveyed 277 university students from public universities using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to learn about their perceptions toward MOOCs as a method of achieving higher education sustainability. According to the findings, perceived ease of use had a positive impact on perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and social influence, which in turn had a positive impact on task-technology fit and MOOCs use as a method of sustainability in higher education. Task-technology fit also had a positive impact on MOOC use as a method of sustainability. Finally, the role of task-technology fit and MOOCs in educational sustainability had a positive effect on students satisfaction and academic performance. As a result, the use of MOOCs in learning processes should be encouraged in higher education institutions to ensure their long-term viability (sustainability).

ADDRESSING LEARNER CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN MOOC DESIGN AND DELIVERY: STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES OF EXPERTS

This mixed-methods study investigates the design and instructional practices of massive open online courses (MOOCs) instructors within the learning environment to address the cultural diversity and learner personalization needs. Leveraging a grounded theory approach, the researchers analyzed two rounds of email interviews (n1= 25; n2=19) with MOOC and open education leaders about cultural sensitivity and personalization in MOOCs. Those interviews led to the formation of a 30-item online questionnaire completed by 152 MOOC instructors. While many of the MOOC instructors within the sample did not fully grasp the complex issues of cultural diversity, most made attempts to modify their instructional practices to accommodate cultural variances. To address cultural and linguistic differences, instructors added subtitles to video content and offered transcripts for video or audio content. Additionally, instructors were careful with language use and hand gestures, used simplified language, slowed their pace of speech, made the course content easy to navigate, limited text by leveraging (multi)media, and encouraged learners to translate and localize content for their peers. Furthermore, many instructors favored collaborative, small group learning; however, instructors could not agree on best practices to establish these groups. Implications and future directions for MOOC instructors and instructional designers are offered.

Learning soft skills in the digital age: Challenges and insights from development and teaching 'Negotiation Management' MOOC

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), growing in number in recent years, occupy a significant place as an open educational resource, and provide insights into the development process as well as offer an innovative educational experience. This reflective article examines insights gathered during the development and offering of two sessions of a Negotiation Management MOOC. The article reviews the development process of the course which is built as a series of situations that simulate real-life moments. The episodes are displayed in a mini case format, based on the principle of sitcoms and the 'edutainment' (educational entertainment) approach. The video clips combine the simulations with the lecturer's analysis, using theories, models, and concepts from their course and training. This is intended to produce a strong emotional engagement in the course content and to motivate the students to continue learning. The developmental stages raised pedagogical questions around content and training, relating to the length of the video clips, interactive learning, and communication. Those stages are presented in the first part of this article. In addition, in its second part, the article offers insights from two target audiences as reported in the student experience reports. The surveys refer to the teaching method, the length of the videos, interactive learning and the unique integration of lecturers and actors in the videos. The student surveys and the lecturer's perspective give insights concerning course development and teaching approach for the Edutainment MOOC approach. These insights will assist other MOOC development and teaching teams, specifically soft skill MOOCs.

Teacher education MOOCs: Re-thinking professional development of teachers according to the MOOC experiences of preservice teachers and teacher trainers

The main aim of this study is to identify the possible roles of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in faculty-based teacher professional development (TPD). In line with this aim, the MOOC experiences of preservice teachers and teacher trainers were examined. This study uses a qualitative single case holistic design. The participants of the study were 58 preservice teachers and 8 teacher trainers. The data were gathered through the semi-structured interviews in 2018-2019 Fall Semester. Before the interviews, a two-day briefing and orientation about MOOCs were held to inform the participants. After enrolling at least one of these upcoming MOOCs, interviews were carried out in the upcoming two months. The content analysis was used to examine the data collected. According to content analysis, TPACK acquisition and its sub-themes were found to be dominant with regards to participants’ views. The preservice teachers mostly enrolled in MOOCs which were related to their “professional field and technical development” domains and mostly suggested TPD MOOC topic by teacher trainers is “effective communication and presentation techniques”. It was noticed in the findings that preservice teachers have lack of confidence about the issues related to classroom management. Some negative views of preservice teachers about the MOOCs are concerned with two specific views; language constraints and costs of certain courses. Overall tendency concerning the use of MOOCs for TPD was found to be positive among the participants. However, most of the participants were uninformed or underchallenged about the MOOCs. Results of this study may help to open a new door for integrating MOOCs into teacher training programs.

On Status Quo, Problems, and Future Development of Translation and Interpreting MOOCs in China—A Mixed Methods Approach

The release of China MOOCs Action Declaration signifies the strategic role of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in China’s national education. Compared with traditional face-to-face instruction, MOOCs have distinctive advantages, such as their large scale, openness, accessibility, flexibility and convenience, so they have shown great development momentum since the very beginning. However, translation and interpreting (TI) MOOCs in China have started relatively late, with limited numbers and types of courses offered and only sporadic studies, especially in-depth empirical research, on existing courses. By adopting a mixed-methods approach involving both desk research of TI MOOCs on 10 major MOOC platforms and in-depth interviews of two teachers and 10 students with TI MOOC teaching or learning experience, this study explores the status quo, problems, and future development of TI MOOCs in China. It is hoped that this paper will shed some light on the research and development (R&D), and application of TI MOOCs, as well as on reforms and innovations of TI education in China and other similar contexts.

Research Trends in K–12 MOOCs: A Review of the Published Literature

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) appeared in the area of educational technologies in 2008. Until 2013, academic research into MOOCs focused mainly on their application to adults as well as students or graduates of tertiary education. However, since 2013, the rising number of K–12 students enrolled in higher education MOOCs made MOOCs a de facto reality in pretertiary education and triggered universities, governments, and MOOC providers to (a) develop MOOCs specifically designed for pretertiary education, and (b) research their potential and value in K–12 educational settings. This resulted in a notable number of K–12 MOOCs and pilot research works in the literature that focused on the potential of MOOCs in compulsory education settings, as well as on their ability to reshape and transform the current educational K–12 framework. This work seeks to (a) trace, analyze, and review the existing literature on K–12 MOOCs, (b) identify representative MOOC implementations, (c) classify and organize research trends and patterns, and (d) reveal MOOCs’ potential value and impact on K–12 settings. The research used a narrative literature review methodology in order to critically review and qualitatively analyze twenty-one research publications in a systematic manner. Analysis of relevant works demonstrated that MOOCs, under a set of prerequisites, can be effectively incorporated into and positively affect pretertiary education.