Incorporating Learner Perspectives into Course Design

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a valuable open educational resource for people around the world. Although they have been published for over a decade, there is not a clear understanding of how to design courses to best meet the expectations and learning goals of the learners who take them. This action research study sought to understand learners' motivations and experiences when taking massive open online courses (MOOCs), in order to better inform MOOC design. MOOC learners were recruited to be interviewed for a qualitative research project seeking to discover, reveal, and characterize their motivations for enrolling, their behavior in courses, and the value they perceived. Analysis of the interviews showed that learners enroll for a variety of reasons, such as curiosity and exploration, connection, or skill acquisition, and these motivations influenced their behavior in the course and their perception of value of the course. Following this research, focus groups of practitioners were recruited to participate in the interpretation of this work for a practical design context and use the results to create a “Learner Design Guide” to help educate the best means to incorporate learners into course design on learners.