Deconstructing disengagement: analyzing learner subpopulations in massive open online courses
| Published | April 2013 |
| Conference | LAK '13: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge Pages 170-179 |
| Country | United States, North America |
ABSTRACT
As MOOCs grow in popularity, the relatively low completion rates of learners has been a central criticism. This focus on completion rates, however, reflects a monolithic view of disengagement that does not allow MOOC designers to target interventions or develop adaptive course features for particular subpopulations of learners. To address this, we present a simple, scalable, and informative classification method that identifies a small number of longitudinal engagement trajectories in MOOCs. Learners are classified based on their patterns of interaction with video lectures and assessments, the primary features of most MOOCs to date.In an analysis of three computer science MOOCs, the classifier consistently identifies four prototypical trajectories of engagement. The most notable of these is the learners who stay engaged through the course without taking assessments. These trajectories are also a useful framework for the comparison of learner engagement between different course structures or instructional approaches. We compare learners in each trajectory and course across demographics, forum participation, video access, and reports of overall experience. These results inform a discussion of future interventions, research, and design directions for MOOCs. Potential improvements to the classification mechanism are also discussed, including the introduction of more fine-grained analytics.
| Keywords | MOOC · learner engagement · trajectories of engagement |
| Published at | California |
| Language | English |
| Refereed | Yes |
| DOI | 10.1145/2460296.2460330 |
| Export options | BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar |
Viewed by 488 distinct readers
CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS
The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.
Click a star to be the first to rate this document
▶ POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS
Digging deeper into learners' experiences in MOOCs: Participation in social networks outside of MOOCs, notetaking and contexts surrounding content consumption
Veletsianos, George; Collier, Amy; Schneider, Emily
Researchers describe with increasing confidence what they observe participants doing in massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, our understanding of learner activities in open courses is limited by researchers' ...
Match: Schneider, Emily
MOOCs for professional teacher development
Jobe, William; Östlund, Christian; Svensson, Lars
A MOOC is a trending concept in education that is disrupting traditional methods of
learning consumption. The emergence and use of MOOCs for professional teacher development is still uncommon, but on the verge of ...
Match: MOOC; United States
Integrating a MOOC into the postgraduate ELT curriculum: Reflecting on students' beliefs with a MOOC blend
Orsini-Jones, Marina; Gafaro, Barbara Conde; Altamimi, Shooq; Qian, Kan; Bax, Stephen
This chapter builds on the outcomes of a blended learning action-research project in its third iteration (academic year 2015-16). The FutureLearn Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Understanding Language: Learning and ...
Match: MOOC
Assessing the effect of Massive Open Online Courses as remedial courses in higher education
Agasisti, Tommaso; Azzone, Giovanni; Soncin, Mara
The current study assesses the effect of using Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with the specific goal of providing remedial education. The data refer to an Italian flagship university, Politecnico di Milano, where a ...
Match: MOOC
Measuring the success of scaleable open online courses
Klobas, Jane E.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to propose measures of online open course success for non-commercial institutional providers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other scaleable open online courses ...
Match: MOOC
Opportunities and threats of the MOOC movement for higher education: The European perspective
Schuwer, Robert; Jaurena, Ines Gil; Aydin, Cengiz Hakan; Costello, Eamon; et al.
The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) movement is the latest ‘big thing’ in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) which threatens to transform Higher Education. Both opportunities and threats are extensively discussed in ...
Match: MOOC
MOOC for capacity building in Indian agriculture
Balaji, Venkataraman; Sodhi, Balwinder; Prabhakar, T V
Presentation slides of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences Brainstorming Session in partnership with COL, New Delhi, India, 5 March 2014. By Venkataraman Balaji, Commonwealth of Learning, co-written with ...
Match: MOOC
The pedagogic architecture of MOOC: A research project on educational courses in Spanish
Fernández-Díaz, Elia; Rodríguez-Hoyos, Carlos; Salvador, Adelina Calvo
This study has been carried out within the context of the ECO European Project (E-learning, Communication Open-Data: Massive Mobile, Ubiquitous, and Open Learning) which is being financed by the European Union over four ...
Match: MOOC
Comparing institutional MOOC strategies: Status report based on a mapping survey conducted in October - December 2015
Jansen, Darco; Goes-Daniels, Miriam; HOME Project; European Association for Distance Teaching Universities
This report presents the results of a MOOC survey amongst higher education institutions (HEIs) with a strong focus on Europe and Canada. The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2015. The results of this survey ...
Match: MOOC
Connectivism and connective knowledge: Essays on meaning and learning networks
Downes, Stephen
Connectivism is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks. The bulk of this work is devoted to ...
Match: MOOC









