Journal
DISTANCE EDUCATION
Volume 39, Issue 3, Pages 353-372Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2018.1476841
Keywords
MOOC forum; temporal dimension; educational data mining; longitudinal trajectory; motivation; learner performance
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Funding
- Penn State EdTech Network Initiation
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Discussion forums are increasingly central to massive open online courses (MOOCs), and it is vital for learners to participate in associated forum activities. Active forum participation positively relates to learner achievement in that more posts yield better learner performance. However, this numerically aggregated measure overlooks the fact that longitudinal trajectories of forum participation temporally vary among learners with different motivations in taking MOOCs. To provide timely support for learners to stay engaged, it is important to understand the temporal variation of longitudinal forum participation and how different motivations account for the variance. Using educational data mining techniques, this research identified three clusters with different longitudinal participation trajectories and also indicated that intrinsically motivated learners outperformed others in their longitudinal forum engagement. Also, examining longitudinal forum participation more accurately differentiated learner performance than the numerically aggregated measure. Last, learners persistently engaging in forums were more likely to perform better in MOOCs.
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