MOOCs are becoming more and more popular. The online courses improve access to education as they are often free and can be followed from any location. But most participants struggle to actually finish a course due to procrastination. PhD candidate Jacqueline Wong (Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences) studied why many MOOCs have such a low success rate. In her PhD thesis she comes with concrete recommendations to improve study success of participants.
Massive Open Online Courses, better known as MOOCs, sprang up like mushrooms from the ground. Many universities offer these online courses and individuals can enroll in a course of their interest for a small fee and improve their knowledge on a specific topic. These MOOCs provide greater access to education for all, regardless of their location and economic status. Participants can decide when and where to study and can even combine MOOCs with a job.
Low success rate
But this is where the ideal image starts to show cracks: only 15 percent of the people who sign up for a MOOC complete the course. Why is that and how can you improve this low success rate? That is what Jacqueline Wong studied in her PhD-thesis. “Often, students procrastinate as they think they can catch up the next week”, she explains. “At a certain point the workload becomes overwhelming and then they quit. This is the trap that many people fall into. Participants did little investment, so they feel like they don’t lose much by dropping out of the course.”
The researcher found that many participants struggle to keep up with the course material because they are poor at self-regulated learning (SRL). SRL is a process involving self-directing towards personal goals also by regularly reflecting on the results and the progression. According to Wong supporting students with SRL can increase learners' success in an online learning environment: “You want to equip the students with the necessary skills and stimulate them to employ better learning strategies.”
But how can a MOOC accommodate this? Prompting participants to set realistic and short-term achievable goals helps. For some students this might come naturally, others might struggle with formulating goals and keeping up with a plan. A clear overview page helps as it shows exactly where you are in the course. When supporting self-regulated learning, course designers should consider the demands of the course on the students and student-related characteristics. Also, Wong finds it important to gather data to personalize support. “This data can tell what a student does in the learning environment and how that leads to success. In the future, when a student is stuck at a video for over a week, the system can send a notification and provide additional teaching material.”
Duolingo
Duolingo, a popular app to learn new languages, can be seen as a good example of how to keep students on board and motivated. Not only do they offer a very playful learning style (gamification) also they use data to improve the progression of students. “They constantly test what is the response of students to notifications about the course material and the progression. This way they know how to frame information to students and that allows them to tell what works best for whom and when.”
Wong realizes that an online course can be challenging. Participants have no interaction with fellow peers and have to figure out a lot on their own. The group that is good in self-regulated learning is a minority, so most people struggle with online education. The researcher also signed up once for a MOOC that she never finished. Her latest attempt was more successful: “My research involves a lot of statistics. That is why I entered a MOOC to learn how to work with R-software. This was very helpful as I apply it a lot. I think it’s very important to think of how you can benefit from the course before you subscribe.”
Increase the potential of MOOCs
MOOCs often have over 10.000 participants. This means that, despite the low success rate of 15 percent, still a lot of people manage to complete a course. But Wong believes that way more people can benefit from MOOCs if students are equipped with the right skills. “You should empower students, help them with goal setting and stimulate self-regulated learning. This way they can realize their full potential. In their future studies or jobs, they will also benefit from this. If we want to understand better how to help students succeed, more research can be very valuable to increase the potential of MOOCs and online education in general.”
PhD-defence
On 21 January 2022 Jacqueline Wong will defend her PhD dissertation, entitled: ‘Enhancing Self-Regulated Learning Through Instructional Supports and Learning Analytics in Online Higher Education’.
- Related links
- All MOOCs at Erasmus University Rotterdam