DROP-OUT in MOOCs

ABSTRACT

Advances in information and communication technologies have been influenced on the learning-teaching practices that fostered development of new learning environments and implementations. The Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are one of these new learning environments. Although it is believed that MOOCs have a great protentional in formal and informal education, high drop-out and low completion rates are considered as a major issue about MOOCs. This study examined the factors that effected the MOOC participants’ noncompletion in the MOOCs Platform, entitled as AKADEMA, of Anadolu University, and their recommendations for improvement of these MOOCs. During this case study, data were collected by using an online questionnaire that included open-ended questions. A content analysis process was employed to reach the themes about noncompletion reasons. Three themes were drawn personal reasons, platform (program)-based reasons, and design-based reasons. Among personal reasons, the ‘other responsibilities’ was the most often cited reasons of noncompletion. Meanwhile, length of the courses (too long) among platform (program)-based reasons, and insufficient timely feedback from the instructors among the content design-based reasons were noted the most. In terms of recommendations for improvement, better announcements about start and end dates of the courses, quality of the videos, more user-friendly interface, and variety in course contents are listed as the major ones.