An analysis of course characteristics, learner characteristics, and certification rates in MITx MOOCs

Download
index.pdf
2020-01-01
Cagiltay, Nergiz Ercil
Çağıltay, Kürşat
Çelik, Berkan
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
303
views
121
downloads
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), capable of providing free (or low cost) courses for millions of learners anytime and anywhere, have gained the attention of researchers, educational institutions, and learners worldwide. Even though they provide several benefits, there are still some criticisms of MOOCs. For instance, MOOCs' high dropout rates or predominantly elite participation are considered to be important problems. In order to develop solutions for these problems, a deeper understanding of MOOCs is required. Today, despite the availability of several research studies about MOOCs, there is a shortage of in-depth research on course characteristics, learner characteristics, and predictors of certification rates. This study examined MOOC and learner characteristics in detail and explored the predictors of course certification rates based on data from 122 Massachusetts Institute of Technology MOOCs (MITx) on edX platform as well as data about the 2.8 million participants registered in these MOOCs. The results indicated that as the number of courses offered and the number of learners enrolled increased in years, there was a decrease in the certification rates among enrolled learners. According to our results, the number of average chapters completed, total forum messages, and mean age predicted course certification rates positively. On the other hand, the total number of chapters in a course predicted the course certification rates negatively. Based on these results, shorter and more interactive MOOCs are recommended by considering the needs of the learners, course content design, and strategies encouraging the enrolled students to enter the courses.
Education
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/46685
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning
Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Article

Suggestions

A review of ICT related courses in pre-service teacher education programs
GÖKTAŞ, YÜKSEL; Yıldırım, Zahide; YILDIRIM, İBRAHİM SONER (Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2008-04-01)
This study investigated teacher educators', prospective teachers', and K-12 teachers' opinions about the effectiveness of ICT related courses and the ways to improve the courses in Turkey's pre-service teacher education programs. The researchers used both quantitative and qualitative research approaches within the data collection and analysis processes. The data were collected from 111 teacher educators, 1,330 prospective teachers, and 1,429 K-12 teachers through questionnaires; and from 6 teacher educators...
THE INVESTIGATION OF NOVICE PROGRAMMERS' DEBUGGING BEHAVIORS TO INFORM INTELLIGENT E-LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS: A CASE STUDY
TÜRKMEN, GAMZE; Caner, Sonay (Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 2020-07-01)
This study aims to provide a comprehensive and in-depth investigation of the debugging process in programming teaching in terms of cognitive and metacognitive aspects, based on programming students who demonstrate low, medium, and high programming performance and to propose instructional strategies for scaffolding novice learners in an effective way. Data were collected from 41 novice programming students from C++ and Python programming language courses of the same instructor in the scope of case study meth...
The preservice teachers’ perceptions about online communication in blended learning: a case study
Ersoy, Halil; Özden, Muhammet Yaşar; Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology (2009)
This study aims to investigate the preservice teachers’ perceptions about online communication in blended learning. The study tries to understand strengths and weaknesses of online communication from the learners’ point of view. To reach this aim, four research questions are asked: (1) What are the learners’ perceptions about the online synchronous communication tool? (2) What are the learners’ perceptions about web-based support? (3) What are the learners’ perceptions about collaboration with online commun...
Investigating the impact of teacher education strategies on preservice teachers' TPACK
Baran, Evrim; BİLİCİ, SEDEF CANBAZOĞLU; ALBAYRAK SARI, AYLİN; Tondeur, Jo (Wiley, 2019-01-01)
The purpose of this study was to examine preservice teachers' perceptions of the support their teacher education programs provide for developing their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK). The research was conducted with 215 preservice teachers in the last year of teacher education programs and teaching certificate programs in three universities in Turkey. Data sources were the synthesis of qualitative evidence (SQD) scale that was validated in the Turkish context as part of this study and th...
An assessment of information technology curriculum implementation in vocational high schools
Biçer, Kader; Kiraz, Ercan; Department of Educational Sciences (2009)
This study aims to provide a general picture of newly adopted IT program in vocational high schools. Through this aim, the issues of to what extent are the objectives and content of Vocational high schools’ new IT curriculum satisfied the needs, how it is implemented in schools, how it is practiced under different circumstances and which factors influence its implementation process are examined. This study was designed as a formative evaluation based on CIPP Model-Process valuation. In order to grasp percep...
Citation Formats
N. E. Cagiltay, K. Çağıltay, and B. Çelik, “An analysis of course characteristics, learner characteristics, and certification rates in MITx MOOCs,” International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, pp. 121–139, 2020, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/46685.
METU IIS - Integrated Information Service open@metu.edu.tr