Understanding learner participation at scale: How and why

Abstract

Understanding learner participation is essential to any learning environment to enhance teaching and learning, especially in large scale digital spaces, such as massive open online courses. However, there is a lack of research to fully capture the dynamic nature of massive open online courses and the different ways learners participate in these emerging massive e-learning ecologies. To fill in the research gap, this paper attempted to investigate the relationship between how learners choose to participate in a massive open online course, their initial motivation for learning, and the barriers they faced throughout the course. This was achieved through a combination of data-driven clustering approaches—to identify patterns of learner participation—and qualitative analysis of survey data—to better understand the learners’ motivation and the barriers they faced during the course. Through this study we show how, within the context of a Coursera massive open online course offered by the University of Illinois, learners with varied patterns of participation (Advanced, Balanced, Early, Limited, and Delayed Participation) reported similar motivations and barriers, but described differences in how their participation was impacted by those factors. These findings are significant to gain insights about learners’ needs which in turn serve as the basis to innovate more adaptive and personalized learning experiences and thus advance learning in these large scale environments.

Evaluation of Online Pedagogy among Higher Education International Students in China during the COVID-19 Outbreak

“…The majority of the international students perceived participation and interaction, meeting individual needs, aiding better understanding, and providing better explanation during online teaching to be less effective than in-class teaching, which could be because the online classes were during a unique period when the teachers and learners were under environmental pressures. Thus, this result supports (Haniya & Paquette, 2020) that motivations and barriers are factors that influence participation and interaction in online classes.…”

“…In enhancing teaching and learning processes, learners' participation is essential (Haniya & Paquette, 2020). The study by Haniya and Paquette (2020) examined learners' massive online course participation, using participation patterns such as "Advanced, Balanced, Early, Limited, and Delayed Participation", and found two major factors that drive learners' participation (motivations and barriers), and their impacts vary with respect to the learners.…”

Post-Graduation Professors and Coordinators with Special Needs: Perceptions about Teaching, and Working during COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Some authors tried to understand innovative pedagogies and the factors that affect the performance of learners. This may help us in a near future, especially after this pandemic period, in order to organize and orientate the education of the next generation with help of these professors (Haniya & Paquette, 2020;Hill & France, 2020).…”

The role of gender and employment status in MOOC learning: An exploratory study

“…Variations in motivation, including its types and strength, have been found to associate with different learning patterns and outcomes in MOOCs (Zheng et al, 2015). For example, Haniya and Paquette (2020) found that highly active learners were more often motivated by clear learning goals, such as enhancing professional skills and preparing for a future career, while learners with limited participation were more often motivated by the interest to gain general knowledge. Semenova (2020), investigating 10,187 learners in nine MOOCs, concluded that learners driven by their general interest and the intention of getting a certificate of completion were more likely to finish the course, whilst learners registered for access to the course materials were less likely to do so.…”

“…Coursera added 10 million users within 2 months (from mid‐March to mid‐May 2020), seven times more than the previous year (Lohr, 2020). However, the openness of MOOCs gives rise to the challenge of devising appropriate pedagogies to suit a learner body heterogeneous in multiple ways: age, geographical location, employment status, educational attainment, skillset, and learning pattern (Haniya & Paquette, 2020).…”