Analyzing Learners’ Behavior Beyond the MOOC: An Exploratory Study

Most of literature on massive open online courses (MOOCs) have focused on describing and predicting learner’s behavior with course trace data. However, little is known on the external resources beyond the MOOC they use to shape their learning experience, and how these interactions relate with their success in the course. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study that analyzes data from 572 learners in 4 MOOCs to understand (1) what the learners’ activities beyond the MOOC are, and (2) how they relate with their course performance. We analyzed frequencies of the students’ individual activities in and beyond the MOOC, and the transitions between these activities. Then, we analyzed the time spent on outside the MOOC content as well as the nature of this content. Finally, we predict which transitions better predict final learners’ grades. The results show that we can predict accurately students’ grades of the course using only internal-course fine-grained data of student’s interactions with video-lectures and exams combined with trace data of interactions with content outside the MOOCs. Also, data shows that learners spent 75% of their time on the MOOC, but go frequently to other content, mainly social networking sites, mail boxes and search engines.