Motivation in MOOCs: A Qualitative Study on the Design and Evaluation of an Online IELTS Course

Abstract

Due to the pandemic, 2020 was an unprecedented year, including for online course providers as one-third of the learners that ever registered on a massive open online course (MOOC) platform did so in 2020. This paper focuses on a MOOC course on IELTS, which is the most popular test-prep language course on Udemy.com. However, despite its overwhelming popularity, upon closer inspection, the course seems out of line with the current body of research on motivation, and motivational supports are by and large absent. In this paper, the authors analyze this Udemy learning experience for built-in motivational supports by applying multiple theories of motivation and learning/teaching. Suggestions as to how to improve the MOOC design are then made. The analysis can potentially shed light on ways to aid MOOC course designers in catering to a diverse student body, including students under stereotype threat. Importantly, the results of this research are deemed generalizable and applicable to numerous other MOOCs for language learning, test-taking, and beyond.



Author Information
Gleb Lantsman, Harvard University, United States
Yu Hao, University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Paper Information
Conference: IICE2022
Stream: Design

This paper is part of the IICE2022 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Lantsman G., & Hao Y. (2022) Motivation in MOOCs: A Qualitative Study on the Design and Evaluation of an Online IELTS Course ISSN: 2189-1036 – The IAFOR International Conference on Education – Hawaii 2022 Official Conference Proceedings https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-1036.2022.33
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2189-1036.2022.33


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Posted by James Alexander Gordon