Stay at Home and Learn: Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Influence Mobile Learning in MOOCs?

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic also affected learning activities on MOOC platforms. The field of application for mobile learning in MOOCs has been weakened through the changes in daily lives. To quantify this impact, user interaction data of the past two years was evaluated in an observational study for two MOOC platforms. Since the start of the pandemic, a drop in mobile learning activities and active mobile learners has been noticed on one of the platforms while activities on the other platform remained stationary. No changes have been detected in the usage behavior of active users of mobile applications or with the utilization of different network connections. The adoption of mobile learning in MOOCs appears to be driven by the offered course topics and breaks in the course schedule, rather than by external factors that restrict the mobility of learners. Dedicated applications for mobile devices for MOOCs are mostly used in a familiar environment with a WiFi connection. This behavior became more pronounced with the start of the pandemic.