8 Things You Should Know About MOOCs

A majority of college and university students in the U.S. are female, but MOOCs flip that balance and then some.

And in some courses, like engineering and computer science, participants are almost entirely male.

Even though the majority of MOOC students already have college degrees, a substantial number of participants have completed no more than a high-school education.

And yet, the classes where they make up the largest proportion of students are the engineering and material science courses, many of which have college-level prerequisites.

Some courses, like computer science, attract students as young as 12.

But other courses, like those in the social sciences, skew toward an older population. Students in humanities courses are four times as likely as those in engineering courses to be 40 years old or older.

Given that the MOOCs are based out of Harvard and MIT, it’s not surprising that the largest proportion of students are from North America. Still, the reach is global — and with regional distinctions.

For example, Africans enroll at twice the rate in social science courses than other courses. South Asians are most likely to take engineering and computer science courses.

Courses are broken into anywhere from 11 to 48 chapters, but few students look at them all. Only 3 percent of participants look at every chapter, and fewer than one in 10 view even half of the material.

In fact, of those who viewed any course material, half looked at 11 percent of the course chapters or less.

Participants from East Asia (China and Japan) view the least amount of material, with those from Europe viewing the most. This is true both over all and when broken out by course type.

Meanwhile, the social sciences had the highest chapter view rates, and the humanities the lowest, no matter the region.

Students holding Ph.D.’s were among the most engaged, viewing more course content than any other education level, on average.

However, students without even a high school diploma were also among the most engaged. In computer science, they ran a close second to Ph.D.’s, and in the humanities courses, they completed more course material than any other education level.

The overwhelming number of participants signed up for just one course. But those who signed up for multiple MOOCs — and there were tens of thousands — tended to look at more course material.

That is, up to a point: Engagement seems to drop off after six courses.

Five “super-MOOCers” appear in the data to have taken all 16 courses offered by edX (including some that were different sections of the same course) and to have read almost 20 percent of the course material, on average. We’re skeptical, and think it’s likely this is a data fluke.