A new major new study shows that interventions in MOOCs do not improve completion rates. The authors called the findings, «depressing.»
MOOCs are the massive, open, online courses that were supposed to upend everything in higher education. They were supposed to be free and open to everyone with online access, bringing the best possible content from the best schools and best professors to everyone. The hype was breathless. The New York Times declared 2012 “The Year of the MOOC.”
The hype was exceeded only by the failure, which has been well documented. And the news isn’t getting much better.
That’s because, from the start, MOOCs had abysmal completion rates. While they attracted tens of thousands of “students,” very few stuck around long and evidence emerged that a heavy proportion of MOOC attendees already had college degrees or were actually already teaching the subject they were supposed to be studying. It has also become clear that MOOCs served the most motivated students, those who likely find a pathway to achievement with or without a MOOC.
In other words, MOOCs are education voyeurism, not education.
But many people have theorized that, if there was a way to boost the success of MOOCs, nudge those completion rates up, their trajectory could change. Unfortunately, based on a new, massive study, that doesn’t seem likely.
The study, by nine named authors and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, found that efforts to put “interventions” at the front of MOOC classes did not boost completion rates, even though the authors had good reason to think they would.
That’s important because the findings infer that MOOCs may already be all they will be, mainly marketing tools and revenue sources for “certificate” sellers.
