December 5, 2013 - Emerging data from a Penn GSE study show that massive open online courses (MOOCs) have relatively few active users, that user “engagement” falls off dramatically—especially after the first 1-2 weeks of a course—and that few users persist to the course end. Presented on December 5, 2013 by Laura Perna and Alan Ruby at the MOOC Research Initiative Conference in Texas, the findings are from the newly established Alliance for Higher Education & Democracy at Penn GSE.
The study analyzed the movement of a million users through sixteen Coursera courses offered by the University of Pennsylvania from June 2012 to June 2013. The project aimed to identify key transition points for users – such as when users enter and leave courses – as well as when and how users participate in the courses. The study also considered how engagement and persistence vary based on various course characteristics.
The courses studied ranged widely in topic, target audience, length of study, instructional time, use of quizzes and assignment of homework, and other dimensions. While a few courses were oriented toward college preparation (e.g., “Calculus: Single Variable”), most focused on occupational skills (e.g., “Cardiac Arrest, Resuscitation Science, and Hypothermia”) or were geared toward personal enrichment (e.g., “Greek and Roman Mythology”). Researchers include Laura Perna, Alan Ruby, Robert Boruch, Nicole Wang, Janie Scull, Chad Evans, and Seher Ahmad
Emerging findings include:
The Penn GSE research team will be conducting additional analyses with the goal of providing recommendations to improve future collection of data and answering additional questions, including what instructional approaches best engage users and what are the best measures of student engagement.