research-article

Understanding Student Motivation, Behaviors and Perceptions in MOOCs

Authors:

Mary Beth Rosson,

Patrick C. Shih,

John M. CarrollAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

Pages 1882 - 1895

https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675217

Published: 28 February 2015 Publication History

Abstract

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have recently experienced rapid development and garnered significant attention from various populations. Despite the wide recognition of MOOCs as an important opportunity within educational practices, there are still many questions as to how we might satisfy students' needs, as evidenced by very high dropout rates. Researchers lack a solid understanding of what student needs are being addressed by MOOCs, and how well MOOCs now address (or fail to address) these needs. To help in building such an understanding, we conducted in-depth interviews probing student motivations, learning perceptions and experiences towards MOOCs, paying special attention to the MOOC affordances and experiences that might lead to high drop rates. Our study identified learning motivations, learning patterns, and a number of factors that appear to influence student retention. We proposed that the issue of retention should be addressed from two perspectives: retention as a problem but also retention as an opportunity.

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Index Terms

Understanding Student Motivation, Behaviors and Perceptions in MOOCs
1. Applied computing
  1. Law, social and behavioral sciences
2. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '15: Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing

February 2015

1956 pages

ISBN:9781450329224

DOI:10.1145/2675133

General Chairs:
Dan Cosley
Cornell University, USA
,
Andrea Forte
Drexel University, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Luigina Ciolfi
Sheffield Hallam University, UK
,
David McDonald
University of Washington, USA

Copyright © 2015 ACM.

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Published: 28 February 2015

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CSCW '15: Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing

March 14 - 18, 2015

BC, Vancouver, Canada

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CSCW '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 161 of 575 submissions, 28%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 2,235 of 8,521 submissions, 26%

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https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9255-9_1
Maestre JShih P(2025)Asynchronously or Synchronously?: Key Insights of Doing Co-Design of Technology with a Vulnerable Population OnlineHuman-Computer Interaction. Design and Research10.1007/978-3-031-80832-6_19(277-295)Online publication date: 14-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-80832-6_19
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