This study analyzed discussion posts from five MOOCs on Coursera to see how learner engagement changed over time. It found that discussions became more focused on course topics and linguistically complex in subsequent offerings of the MOOCs. Two statistical models showed discussion posts became significantly more on-topic and used higher grade level language as the courses were offered multiple times. However, the reasons for changing discourse patterns over time, such as habitual learners or a growing MOOC user base, require further exploration.

1. Changing Patterns of MOOC Discourse
Nia M. Dowell1, Christopher Brooks1, Vitomir Kovanović2, Srećko Joksimović2
& Dragan Gašević2
1University of Michigan & 2University of Edinburgh
Goal
Methods
Courses: Five MOOCs on the Coursera platform
which ran for several sessions (N = 59,017
participants). Each course was different with
respect to the first session start date, the length of
the course, the instructor, learning objectives, part-
icipants, and domain being taught. All courses met
the following criteria:
• Instructional designers confirmed each of the
courses chosen experienced minimal changes
between course offerings
• Instructors had consistent involvement in the
course across subsequent offerings
• The courses chosen all ran between six and
ten times, and the data from all offerings was
included
Discourse Features:
• On-Topic was measured by the relevance of
students’ messages in the discussion with the
course video transcripts
• Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level is one of the
most commonly used linguistic complexity
measures and was captured using the Coh-
Metrix 3.0 system
On-Topic Discussion Findings
Conclusions
Statistical Analyses
• There is increasing relevance and linguistic
complexity in MOOC discussions over subse-
quent offerings
• While not all courses have the same amplitude
of increase, there is a general trend seen in all
courses except for one
• We have not addressed the question as to why
discourse patterns are changing in MOOCs. It
may be:
Ø That the population for subsequent offerings
is more niche, and new courses are generally
taken by the broadest population
Ø An effect of habitual course takers
Ø An effect of the steadily increasing MOOC
user base in general
• Future work will also explore additional partici-
pant population characteristics, and incororate
the total number of posts per learner into the
models
Prior research on MOOCs has seen significant
investment in understanding the make-up of the
learner population, largely through demographic,
performance, and activity-based measures. With
the phenomenon now in its fifth year, we provide a
retrospective analysis of how learner engagement
within MOOCs has changed, based on the form of
learner discussions. In particular, we demonstrate
here that discussions:
Ø have become more focused or on-topic
over time
Ø the linguistic features that characterize
MOOC learners’ discourse have become
more complex over time
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Findings
Acknowledgments
This work was supported in part by a Building
Community and Capacity grand from the National
Science Foundation (NSF BCC 14-517) and the
Michigan Institute of Data Science (MIDAS) initi-
ative.
Two Linear Mixed Effect Models were
constructed:
Dependent Variables
Ø On-Topic Discussion
Ø Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level
Independent Variables
Ø Time & Course
Random Effects: Participant
Model Evaluations:
The likelihood ratio tests indicated a significantly
better fit than the null random effects only
models with
On-Topic model: χ2(9) = 9277.32, p = .001, R2
m
= .16, R2
c = .38
F-K model: χ2(9) = 3024.47, p = .0001, R2
m =
.05, R2
c = .37