Attrition in MOOC: Lessons Learned from Drop-Out Students

Despite the popularity of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), recent studies have found that completion rates are low with some reported to be significantly lower than 10%. The low retention and completion rates are major concerns for educators and institutions. This paper investigates motivations fo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Guetl, Christian, Hernandez Rizzardini, R., Chang, V., Morales, M.
Other Authors: Lorna Uden
Format: Book Chapter
Published: Springer 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/2743
Description
Summary:Despite the popularity of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), recent studies have found that completion rates are low with some reported to be significantly lower than 10%. The low retention and completion rates are major concerns for educators and institutions. This paper investigates motivations for enrolling in a MOOC on the topic of ‘e-learning’ and discusses reasons for the attrition rates during the course. A survey of 134 students who had not completed the MOOC reveals that only 22% of the students had intended to complete the MOOC but was unable to due to various factors including academic and personal reasons. A big majority of the students indicated that changes in their job, insufficient time, difficulty with the subject matter and unchallenging activities are some of the reasons for the drop-out.