Storified Programming MOOCs: A Case Study on Learner Engagement and Perception

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become a well-established tool for lifelong learning since their first invention in 2008. Although the courses initially aimed at high social interaction rates and interactive course structures, most conducted courses since the big MOOC hype in 2012 follow a classic teaching approach that often lacks interactive elements and suffers from low user engagement. To make our course format more engaging and interactive, we experimented with gameful learning by creating two storified Java programming MOOCs, which include a detective story that spans all course weeks. This paper evaluates learner engagement and perception with story videos and interactive story quizzes in our storified programming courses. We found that the learners’ engagement with the optional story videos and quizzes is slightly less than regular video lectures and other mandatory learning materials. Nevertheless, some learners are particularly motivated by the story and interact with the story elements throughout the course. These learners have relatively good learning outcomes; for some, the story is even their primary motivation to continue with the course. However, some learners dislike the story elements and feel distracted by them. In terms of acceptance, we did not notice any major differences in demographic factors like age and gender. However, we found that learners motivated to participate in the course above average and even using additional bonus tasks show no higher interest in the story than the average learner. Thus, we disprove that learners only use the story because they use all offered course elements but because they are actually interested in it.