Factors affecting student dropout in MOOCs: a cause and effect decision‐making model

Abstract

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Learning Design Decisions in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) Applied to Higher Education in Civil-Engineering Topics

“…Figure 2 shows the percentage of total students by age distribution. Most of the participants were adults, similar to in other studies [10,22,23]. The majority age group was from 25 to 35 years old in the three editions (37.5%, 29.9%, and 38.7%, respectively), which reflects the goal attainment for the previously defined targeted audience in the course design, without prejudice to the original open and massive nature of an MOOC.…”

“…As shown in Table 2, the second edition was the most popular, with 2331 students enrolled, where 39.36% started the MOOC, and 36.80% of the students who had started the course finished it. These rates are higher than those of several indicated studies [9,10] in which the completion rates varied between 2% and 23%. The third edition had fewer students enrolled due to the circumstances from the COVID-19 pandemic, and this edition had scarce resources, especially in terms of dissemination on social networks.…”

“…As several studies [9,10,18] indicated, and Figure 7 reflects, social factors such as student-teacher relationships, communication, and social support are crucial for the success of an MOOC. In addition to forums on the platform or email notifications, teaching staff of the integrated-water-management MOOC created a Twitter account to publicize the MOOC on social networks and to promote social contact with the students more informally.…”

Influence of MOOC learners discussion forum social interactions on online reviews of MOOC

“…A lack of social interaction is one of the reasons that online learners feel lonely, which has a negative impact on online learning (Moreno-Marcos et al 2019). If online learners persist in participating in the course discussion forum, the functions of support and companionship in the course discussion forum will be enhanced (Aldowah et al 2019). Social learning and peer learning are important factors in promoting online learner participation (Swinnerton et al 2017).…”

Social Support in Massive Open Online Courses: A Literature Review

“…Although MOOCs are currently seen as the perfect alternative to quality education, past studies showed that MOOCs are flawed with low completion and high dropout rates (Yang et al, 2013;Khalil and Ebner, 2014;Hussain et al, 2016;Liyanagunawardena et al, 2014;Veletsianos and Shepherdson, 2016). Student dropout in MOOCs is a keyinterest to be concerned about in the higher learning institutions and among policy makers which was mainly triggered by issuesbeyond the control of the institutions (Aldowah et al, 2019).Out of the 90% dropout rates, among the reasons given were due to having no one to turn to and feeling of isolation (Hew and Cheung, 2014;Khalil and Ebner, 2014).…”