Learner engagement in MOOCs: Scale development and validation

Abstract

Ruiqi Deng is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland. His research interests are MOOCs, online learning environment design and technology-enhanced learning. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Queensland and a master's degree from Department of Education, University of Oxford. Pierre Benckendorff is an associate professor at the University of Queensland. His research interests are tourism education and scholarship, tourism information technology, and visitor behaviour. He has authored over 90 publications in these areas in leading international journals and is a regular speaker at tourism and higher education research conferences. Deanne Gannaway is a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland. Her research interests are curriculum design, educational evaluation and teaching innovation. She is the program coordinator for professional learning in teaching and is regularly invited to facilitate workshops and seminars across Australasia and beyond. AbstractThe purpose of this study is to contribute to a better understanding of the complexity of conceptualising and measuring learner engagement in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The paper develops and validates a MOOC engagement scale (MES) to measure learner engagement. The initial questionnaire items of the scale were developed by reviewing existing related literature and validated student engagement constructs. This was followed by a modified scale development process, including two focus group interviews (n = 10), an exploratory survey (n = 12), an expert review (n = 10), a pilot survey (n = 15), an item purification study (n = 590) and a construct validation study (n = 303). The final version of the scale is made up of four dimensions: behavioural engagement, cognitive engagement, emotional engagement and social engagement. The paper concludes with recommendations for how the MES can be used to assess the pattern of engagement in MOOCs and to investigate the relationship between learner engagement and other important MOOC teaching and learning factors. InstructionThink about a MOOC you enrolled in and keep this MOOC in mind when answering all the questions. Indicate to what extent you agree with the statements on a 6-point Likert scale:

Determining Factors in MOOCs Completion Rates: Application Test in Energy Sustainability Courses

“…However, although 82.441% of the sample responded that the course provided them with improved professional skills [FC1-R06] (Figure 2), the level of agreement is much lower, which may indicate that, while MOOCs play a role in professional development, maybe they did not effectively provide participants with new skills or competencies that can be applied in the workplace. These results may be in line with those explained by Deng, Benckendorff and Gannaway (2020) [2] and with Romero-Rodríguez, Ramírez-Montoya and Valenzuela González (2019) [32], in the sense that MOOCs present difficulties for terminal efficiency, especially with aspects related to various types of commitments, including emotional, social and cognitive.…”

“…In the scope given by open education, MOOCs are an alternative global practice that have made the way in which it is studied fairer [1]. However, there are also difficulties for terminal efficiency, with aspects related to several types of engagements, among which the emotional, social, and cognitive commitment stand out [2]. There are many factors involved in the engagement and completion rates of MOOCs, and it is certainly interesting to explore some of them in this framework.…”

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

“…The authors maintain that learner engagement in MOOCs should be discussed in conjunction with learner characteristics, such as motivations and goals. It is important for practitioners to identify the diverse needs of learners early in a MOOC session before providing support to learners with patterns of lower scores in certain engagement dimensions (Deng et al, 2020). For example, keen completers who report a high level of cognitive engagement but a low level of emotional engagement may be indicative of individuals who encountered difficulties and felt isolated and uninspired, despite committing effort to the learning process.…”

“…Twelve questions were adopted to assess learner engagement in the MOOC. The MOOC Engagement Scale (MES) recently developed and validated by Deng et al (2020) was employed to measure learners' behavioural, cognitive, emotional and social engagement specific to the MOOC learning environment. The MES consisted of twelve 6‐point Likert scales, with anchors ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.…”

“…Student engagement has been linked to improvements in desirable outcomes such as general abilities, cognitive development, self‐esteem, satisfaction, persistence and better academic results (Henrie, Halverson, & Graham, 2015; Trowler, & Trowler, p., 2010). Although engagement has been extensively investigated since the 1980s (Appleton, Christenson, & Furlong, 2008), this research interest recently shifted to the context of MOOCs (Deng, Benckendorff, & Gannaway, 2020). The reasons for this increased scholarly attention to MOOC engagement are twofold.…”