A recent quantitative study (pdf) of MOOC engagement, which tracked the behaviour patterns of more than 300,000 students enrolled in Stanford-based Coursera courses, suggests that using “the dropout label on everyone who fails to complete a MOOC misses key distinctions and fails to acknowledge the spectrum of learning goals that students bring to open online courses. A student who engages with the material but does not turn in all assignments should not, the researchers argue, be considered a failure. Nor should it be assumed the MOOC wasn’t useful.” Instead, the researchers propose a new taxonomy of MOOC engagement:
- Viewers watch lectures, handing in few if any assignments.
- Solvers hand in assignments for a grade, viewing few if any lectures.
- All-Rounders balance the watching of lectures with the handing in of assignments.
- Collectors primarily download lectures.
- Bystanders are “registered for the course, but their total activity is below a very low threshold.”
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/study-of-moocs-suggests-dropping-the-label-dropout/53421