Qualitative Assessment of Tangible-Intangible Outcomes and Challenges of Massive Open Online Courses

Given the growing popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) due to openness to support learning needs of massive audience, we cannot overlook the fact that MOOCs also suffer from poor completion and satisfaction rate. A 2018 Columbia University's Teachers College study on edX and Coursera courses shows that MOOC Certificate programs have a completion rate of 15% or less. It might seem easier, but creating MOOCs is anything but simple and MOOCs design and research face substantial hurdles in understanding individuals' technology-mediated epistemic practices. In this study, we attempted to reconstruct the episodic memories of members of Generations Y and Z, based on their unique interaction with MOOC platforms and gathered qualitative insights. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews based on purposeful sampling, and analysed thematically in Atlas software to translate usability perceptions and challenges faced by two population groups. The findings of the study suggest that MOOCs openness be redesigned by instructional designers to include personalization, content validation and automation processes for better retention, satisfaction and completion rates.