Understanding Engagement in MOOCs

Previous studies about engagement in MOOCs has focused primarily on behavioral engagement and less attention has been paid to cognitive engagement. This may lead to incomplete or even incorrect understandings about students experience and learning in MOOCs. In this study, we use number of lectures watched as a proxy for behavioral engagement and number of pauses in lectures watched as a proxy for cognitive engagement. Results show that a large proportion of students who were behaviorally engaged (watching lectures) were not cognitively engaged—they almost never paused the lectures or they paused fewer and fewer times as the course went on. This may indicate that being behaviorally engaged does not necessarily mean being cognitively engaged. In addition, we also found that students’ number of pauses in lectures is positively associated with achievement and improves the prediction of achievement.