Understanding student engagement in large-scale open online courses: A machine learning facilitated analysis of student’s reflections in 18 highly rated MOOCs
| Published | July 2018 |
| Journal | The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning Volume 19, Issue 3, Pages 70-93 |
| Publisher | Athabasca, University |
| Country | Hong Kong, Asia |
ABSTRACT
Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) have attracted much worldwide attention, scholars still understand little about the specific elements that students find engaging in these large open courses. This study offers a new original contribution by using a machine learning classifier to analyze 24,612 reflective sentences posted by 5,884 students, who participated in one or more of 18 highly rated MOOCs. Highly rated MOOCs were sampled because they exemplify good practices or teaching strategies. We selected highly rated MOOCs from Coursetalk, an open user-driven aggregator and discovery website that allows students to search and review various MOOCs. We defined a highly rated MOOC as a free online course that received an overall five-star course quality rating, and received at least 50 reviews from different learners within a specific subject area. We described six specific themes found across the entire data corpus: (a) structure and pace, (b) video, (c) instructor, (d) content and resources, (e) interaction and support, and (f) assignment and assessment. The findings of this study provide valuable insight into factors that students find engaging in large-scale open online courses.| Keywords | engagement · machine learning · massive open online courses · MOOCs · text mining |
| Published at | Athabasca, AB |
| ISSN | 1492-3831 |
| Refereed | Yes |
| Rights | Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) |
| DOI | 10.19173/irrodl.v19i3.3596 |
| URL | http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/3596 |
| Export options | BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar |
AVAILABLE FILES
Viewed by 259 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
Towards a model of engaging online students: Lessons from MOOCs and four policy documents
Hew, Khe Foon
The paper describes a model of engaging students in fully online or blended learning environments. To do this, I first discuss the notion of student engagement and how it relates to the Self-Determination Theory of ...
Match: hew, khe foon; engagement; moocs
Measuring learners’ motivation level in Massive Open Online Courses
Huang, Biyun; Hew, Khe Foon; Division of Information and Technology Studies, Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong
Motivation stimulates and sustains learning behavior. It is important to understand learners’ motivation, and identify whether the instructional materials can motivate or demotivate students. However, there are ...
Match: hew, khe foon; moocs
Understanding the quality factors that influence the continuance intention of students toward participation in MOOCs
Yang, Ming; Shao, Zhen; Liu, Qian; Liu, Chuiyi
The massive open online course (MOOC) is emerging as the new paradigm for modern education. The success of MOOCs depends on learners' continued usage. Drawing upon the information systems success model (IS success ...
Match: understanding; moocs
Students’ and instructors’ use of massive open online courses (MOOCs): Motivations and challenges
Hew, Khe Foon; Cheung, Wing Sum
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are among the latest e-learning initiative to attain widespread popularity among many universities. In this paper, a review of the current published literature focusing on the use of ...
Match: hew, khe foon
Understanding learners’ motivation and learning strategies in MOOCs
Alario-Hoyos, Carlos; Estévez-Ayres, Iria; Pérez-Sanagustín, Mar; Kloos, Carlos Delgado; Fernández-Panadero, Carmen
MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have changed the way in which OER (Open Educational Resources) are bundled by teachers and consumed by learners. MOOCs represent an evolution towards the production and offering of ...
Match: understanding; moocs
Teaching Massive, Open, Online, Courses (MOOCs): Tales from the front line
Lowenthal, Patrick; Snelson, Chareen; Perkins, Ross
Very little research has been conducted about what it is like to teach a MOOC. Given this, a mixed methods study, involving a survey of 186 MOOC instructors and 15 follow-up interviews, was conducted to explore the ...
Match: massive open online courses; moocs
Mining Humanistic Data with Machine Learning to Improve Open Educational Resources (OER) Engagement
Vonitsanos, Gerasimos; Moustaka, Ioanna; Doukakis, Spyridon; Vlamos, Panagiotis
Match: engagement; machine learning
A usability evaluation of a blended MOOC environment: An experimental case study
Yousef, Ahmed Mohamed Fahmy; Chatti, Mohamed Amine; Schroeder, Ulrik; Wosnitza, Marold
In the past few years, there has been an increasing interest in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a new form of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL), in higher education and beyond. Recognizing the limitations of ...
Match: massive open online courses; moocs
What research says about MOOCs – An explorative content analysis
Zawacki-Richter, Olaf; Bozkurt, Aras; Alturki, Uthman; Aldraiweesh, Ahmed
Since the first offering of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in 2008, the body of literature on this new phenomenon of open learning has grown tremendously. In this regard, this article intends to identify and map ...
Match: massive open online courses; moocs
Motivations, achievements, and challenges of self-directed informal learners in open educational environments and MOOCs
Bonk, Curtis; Lee, Mimi
This research targeted the learning preferences, goals and motivations, achievements, challenges, and possibilities for life change of self-directed online learners enrolled in a massive open online course (MOOC) ...
Match: massive open online courses; moocs
