Exploring the relevance of single‐gender group formation: What we learn from a massive open online course (MOOC)

Abstract

This paper reports the results of an exploratory study on participants' perception of the importance of single-gender grouping in a massive open online course (MOOC) delivered through the Coursera platform. Findings reveal that female and male learners' perception of single-gender grouping differs. Female students more than males indicated less preference for single-gender grouping. Views on single-gender grouping also differed across regions, suggesting the effect of participants' regions of origin on their opinions about single-gender grouping. Moreover, an interaction was established between participants' region and gender. In particular, our study reveals that men in the "Asia and Pacific" region tended-more than men and women from other regions of the world-to give more importance to single-gender grouping in this MOOC. In addition, younger participants cared less about single-gender groups compared to older respondents. This study sheds light on our understanding of the importance of gender and age importance in online learning environments such as MOOCs. The findings also point to the role gender and age may play as MOOCs continue to gain in popularity and to adopt collaborative approaches to teaching and learning.

Linking learner factors, teaching context, and engagement patterns withMOOClearning outcomes

“…Although it would be premature to conclude that males are inherently more engaged than females in the MOOC context, this observation sends a signal that gender is associated with engagement and should be considered when developing MOOCs. Future research could explore, for example, the effectiveness of single‐gender grouping in MOOCs that adopt group work and peer grading assessments (Bayeck, Hristova, Jablokow, & Bonafini, 2018).…”

Exploring Demographics and Students’ Motivation as Predictors of Completion of a Massive Open Online Course

“…Cisel (2014) indicated that learner performance in MOOCs was highly correlated with the learner's geographic location, employment status, and time constraints, and that unemployed learners from high Human Development Index (HDI) countries were more likely to complete the course. Other variables that have been examined for their effects on MOOC completion include years of education (Guo & Reinecke, 2014;Schulze, 2014), friends' performance in a MOOC (Brown et al, 2015), prior online learning experience (Morris, Hotchkiss, & Swinnerton, 2015), English proficiency (Engle, Mankoff, & Carbrey, 2015;Konstan, Walker, Brooks, Brown, & Ekstrand, 2015;Schulze, 2014), number of posts and number of videos watched (Bonafini, 2017;Bonafini, Chae, Park, & Jablokow, 2017), gender (Bayeck, Hristova, Jablokow, & Bonafini, 2018;Breslow et al, 2013;Konstan et al, 2015;Schulze, 2014), and age (Breslow et al, 2013;Guo & Reinecke, 2014;Konstan et al, 2015;Morris et al, 2015;Schulze, 2014;Zhang et al, 2016). Most of the studies agree that there is a positive relationship between age and MOOC completion rates.…”

MOOC Education Mode of PE Public Curriculum in Colleges and Universities Based on Data Mining

“…The inspiration for the questionnaire is derived from Professor LI Yunhuo's LICC teaching mode. According to the twenty observational perspectives of four main elements, namely Learning, Instruction, Curriculum and Culture, so that the content of the questionnaire is more scientific (Bayeck, Hristova, Jablokow & Bonafini, 2016). The content of the questionnaire survey is mainly divided into four parts: statistical survey of students' basic information, survey of classroom teaching method and quality, student's classroom performance and students' suggestions for the teaching mode.…”