Understanding and Enhancing Learner Engagement in a Massive Open Online Course

Abstract

Due to its potential to provide a cost-free education to an unlimited number of learners worldwide, massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been considered an education innovation. However, MOOCs are not without their challenges: most suffer from low learner engagement and completion rates below 10%. Over recent years, studies have been conducted to find approaches to improve learner engagement and completion in MOOCs, but an effective solution is yet to be found. In this thesis, an action research cycle was conducted in order to better understand learner engagement and completion in the “Academic Integrity(AI): Values, Skills, Action” MOOC developed by the University of Auckland and hosted on the Future Learn platform. The aim was to design an effective intervention to enhance learner engagement and completion in the MOOC. The thesis adopted an action research approach for the purpose of enhancing the AI MOOC with an intervention. An information nudge was designed and applied to the AI MOOC based on the finding of two case studies that investigated the instructional design and behavioural engagement patterns of the MOOC. Results from the intervention study indicate that intervention was positively associated with the number of learning steps completed by learners. It remains to be explored in further studies whether this nudge approach can be generalised to other MOOCs. Keywords: action research, behavioural engagement, completion rate, instructional design, massive open online courses (MOOCs), nudge theory, task value.