Investigating Massive Open online Courses (moocs): Challenges and Future Trend

Investigating Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Challenges and Future Trend

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) has been gaining exposure to the general public in response to the escalating importance of tertiary education and the increasing dominance of mobile devices in higher education. Known for its availability and convenience, MOOCs is a new form of online learning hosted mainly by prestigious universities while no requiring any qualifications for enrolment, which in other words means that everyone is eligible to access the materials. Despite its great popularity among the higher education market, there are controversies stemmed from the ambiguity in its pedagogy that users and educators are about to attain a clearer vision in the near future. The major challenges and future projection of MOOCs are herein discussed.

Persistence

Free goods are always perceived as invaluable. As suggested by various researches, there is a trend of low persistency on the contemporary usage of MOOCs. Learners were detected with a tendency to dropout prior to viewing the next video of the course. A specific example would be the MOOC course on electronic circuit from MIT. According to Nicholas Carr, the MOOC was signed up by 155,000 students. The first set of problems was completed by 23,000 students whereas only 7,000 students had eventually passed the course. It is claimed that the failure to retaining students attentive and motivated would be the major cause of such a high dropout rate (Carr, 2012). This individual case from MIT is, unfortunately, only the tip of the ice berg. As indicated by Melody Terras and Judith Ramsay, in accordance to Khe Foon Hew and Wing Sum Cheung, there is a ninety percent dropout rate of MOOCs courses (as cited in Terras & Ramsay, 2015, p.477).

Other researchers have proposed that the persistence of students in MOOCs courses is closely related to their motives for taking part in the course. According to the research conducted by Brent Evans, Rachel Baker, and Thomas Dee in regards to the persistence pattern of students in MOOCs, the greatest motivation that kept students until course completion or even certificate attainment is the fact that those courses were conducted by prestigious universities; the second popular motivation was found to be fun; while the worst would be the incentive to seek for employment, leading to an inferior persistency in MOOCs (Evans, Baker, & Dee, 2016, p. 236). However, the findings from Terras & Ramsy’s study do not agree to the above. As illustrated by Terras, in accordance to Hew et al, the four main incentives for taking MOOCs are listed as: “ to extend or develop their knowledge of an area, curiosity about MOOCs, personal challenge and the acquisition of qualifications.” The lack of incentives to complete and difficulties to addressing the inquiries are the major reason for dropouts (as cited in Terras & Ramsay, 2015, p.477). Ray I Chang, Yu Hsin Hung, and Chuu Fu Lin have sighted another trend in their findings. It was found that nineteen percent of MOOCs users utilized the platform as a mean to strengthen and consolidate their existing knowledge (Chang, Hung, & Lin, 2015, p. 538). Therefore it is suggested that there are no idealistic types of learners who would be more likely to complete MOOCs.

Provided by Evans et al, there are another contributing factor to the difference in persistency of students would be the structure of the courses. The length of the course is found to affect the possibility of course completion. Lower rates of persistence were tracked in longer classes granted that the average video length have no significant effect on the data (Evans et al, 2016, p. 236). A significant variance in persistency is also found when students were provided with the choice to either answer qualitative, quantitative questions or not to answer them in a STEM course. Highest persistency was indicated from students answering problems quantitatively (Evans et al, 2016, p. 236). Despite not further investigated, the research has suggested the variance among the course structure and user persistency. The study has also accessed the persistence patterns among courses that requires and do not require prerequisites. The courses without prerequisites were found to have a higher rate in completion. As suggested by the researches, the insecurity in knowledge foundation of users might attribute to such findings (Evans et al, 2016, p. 224).

The aspect that most might find hardest to tackle would be the competence and skills acquired by users. Learning skills play an important role in the completion of MOOCs. As indicated by Melody Terras and Judith Ramsay, “the associated digital literacy and learning skills that they support, will vary both between learners and within learners as their skills develop over time” (Terras & Ramsay, 2015, p. 477). Learning skills such like self-management and communication skills of users would greatly affect their capability to the completion of the whole course.

The findings from multiple academic articles have agreed on the same fact that the current MOOCs has provided users with a low motivation in result to a higher dropout rate. While exposed to the same findings, Kalam has suggested a different idea: “even if the percentage of participants who complete MOOCs is very small, a small percentage of a very large number is still a large number” (Kalman, 2014, p. 10). When only in view of the completion figures, MOOCs might have been a success granted its low running cost when compared to traditional higher education.

Social Aspects

The provision of social platform are one of the more, if not most, criticized category in terms of the development in MOOCs. Whether or not such connections among different students were established plays an important role in ones learning efficiency. Not only does it enables student to achieve a higher persistency in their study of MOOCs, but it also attributes to their long term interest in the corresponding subject. MOOCs have a high possibility of attracting the unintended audience for the course due to its accessibility towards the general public (Liyanagunawardena, Lundqvist, & Williams, 2015, p. 566). It is of concern if social platforms can promote the interaction among different learners in hope of a constructive