Improving learners' inclination to complete online courses: motivation and engagement factors
Conference Publication ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
Many learners born in and after the 1990s would be familiar with some form of digital technology. Labelled as digital natives, they are competent in searching the Web for information, communicating on social media, streaming videos and songs, and using application software. Considering that these digital natives have a high level of digital literacy, does it mean that they are more receptive to learning in digital environments over learning in physical classroom environments? Digital technology has enabled learning in ways that are beyond physical classrooms. Today, learners have access to courses on such massive open online course (MOOC) platforms as Coursera, edX, Udacity, Udemy, etc. These online courses, accessible for free or at a nominal charge, allow learners high course access flexibility at a time and place convenient to them. This study supposes that having high digital literacy is not sufficient to drive learners to undertake, and ultimately, to successfully complete such online courses. Instead, learners must be motivated to engage in learning activities to successfully complete these courses. Adopting the Motivation and Engagement Scale (MES) by Martin (2007, 2009), this study collected responses from university students to examine whether positive motivational thoughts (i.e. self-belief, valuing, and learning focus) alter positive engagement behaviours (i.e. planning, task management, and persistence); whether negative motivational thoughts (i.e. anxiety, failure avoidance, and uncertain control) alter negative engagement behaviours (i.e. self-sabotage and disengagement); and how positive or negative engagement behaviours affect learners' inclination to complete online courses. Findings show that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between positive motivation and positive engagement, between negative motivation and negative engagement, and between positive engagement and inclination to complete. However, the relationship between negative engagement and inclination to complete was statistically not significant. Findings of this study can be useful to MOOC providers and learners in their effort to develop strategies to improve completion rates of MOOCs.
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ECEL 2018: 17th European Conference on e-Learning
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978-1-912764-07-5
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9
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Athens, Greece
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Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited
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Athens, Greece
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