Enjoyed or Bored? A Study into Achievement Emotions and the Association with Barriers to Learning in MOOCs

Abstract

MOOCs are accessible online personal development opportunities in which learners can expand their knowledge on many topics. Yet, the experience of barriers to learning often hinders learners from achieving their personal learning goals. Therefore, it is important to have insight into determinants that may influence the experience of (certain) barriers. This study investigated whether the emotional determinants enjoyment and boredom, which are known to impact learner achievement and motivation, affect the experience of (specific) barriers while learning in MOOCs. The results show that boredom did affect the experience of barriers related to technical and online related skills, social context and time, support and motivation, yet it did not affect the experience of barriers related to the design of the MOOC. Enjoyment was not correlated to any of the barriers. Furthermore, the same analysis comparing men to women again revealed that boredom did not significantly affect the experience of barriers related to the design of the MOOC, yet did significantly affect the experience of the other barriers. No, significant differences were found between males and females These findings may serve as input for supporting learners in achieving their individual learning goals.

Quantifying the Influence of Achievement Emotions for Student Learning in MOOCs

“…While many studies of emotions in MOOCs use self-report (e.g., Henderikx et al., 2019; Pekrun et al., 2011) or manual analysis of interviews or forums (e.g., Dillon et al., 2016), sentiment analysis, an automatic approach for identifying and classifying emotions by analyzing large amounts of opinion data, has become more popular over the years. Sentiment analysis can provide understanding of learners’ attitudes, satisfaction, and possible sentiment predictors for dropping out or academic performance (Dmoshinskaia, 2016) and consists of four main phases: data acquisition, data preparation, review analysis, and sentiment classification.…”

“…The ability for anyone in the world with reliable Internet to enroll in MOOC courses at any time attracts thousands of learners for self-improvement (Yang et al., 2015). Learners can increase their knowledge and benefit from MOOCs through the course content and interactions with peers from a diverse range of places and cultures (Henderikx et al., 2019). MOOCs have become an important part of students’ daily learning (Dmoshinskaia, 2016), and have received increasing attention from the public.…”

Linking cognitive processes and learning outcomes: The influence of cognitive presence on learning performance in MOOCs

“…Massively open online courses (MOOCs) offer learners opportunities for self‐improvement and knowledge development by engaging them with content and discussion forums for free or at little cost (Henderikx et al., 2019). Knowledge development usually involves interactions between students, instructors, content and environment (Collins et al., 1991).…”

Designing a Successful MOOC – An Empirical Study of the Foreign Language Courses On a MOOCs Platform

“…Low participant retention rate, high drop-out rate, negative emotions associated with the learning experience are among the commonly observed issues with MOOCs (Liu et al, 2020;Wan, et al, 2020). Research studies have examined the causes of the issues and proposed recommendations of how to address them from the perspective of user satisfaction, course content, interaction with peers and instructors among other parameters (Henderikx et al, 2019;Hong et al, 2017;Kaewkitipong et al, 2016;Park, 2019;Sari et al, 2020;Shahzad, et al, 2020). The research focus of most of the extant literature has been on the pros and cons of MOOCs, or its usage in various academic disciplines or environments.…”