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Theres no shortage of anecdotal reports by college professors complaining that higher than normal numbers of students fail/drop out of online courses. Heck, my
by ZanyProgrammer 13y ago
Theres no shortage of anecdotal reports by college professors complaining that higher than normal numbers of students fail/drop out of online courses. Heck, my own anecdotal experience of distance learning in college recently bears that out.
- mkehrt 13y agoI'm told by someone who's taught one that the completion rates on free MOOCs are in the low single digit percents of people who signed up, if that. But, as he points out, this is really ok, as people are learning as much as they care to.
- systematical 13y agoYeah there is a difference when you actually pay for them, this is paid for. I've never completed a free one, but any online college course I've paid for you can bet I've completed spending several hours a week on and well over 16 hours or more leading up to mid-terms and finals.
- djKianoosh 13y agoif something is free, i bet many more people sign up to see what it's like. if it's not for them, they bail. a high percentage of dropout i would think is expected for something that's free. it's comparing apples and oranges...
- UK-AL 13y agoDropout numbers are a pointless metric on moocs. I've lost count on how many moocs I have signed up for, without any intention of completing them. It's just an example of people trying bring in old metrics, on new things they don't understand.
- bcbrown 13y agoSame here. I've learned a ton from the moocs I've signed up for and not completed.
- mslate 13y agoThe plural of anecdote is not data.
- abduhl 13y agoThe plural of anecdote is data. Edit: I suppose I should post something useful here rather than just a snark reply to someone's snark reply. Anecdotes represent distinct points of data and, therefore, a bunch of anecdotes would then be a collection of data.
- summerdown2 13y agoI'm not sure that's correct. To become useful for science, you also need to put in a lot of work to correct for bias, etc. Having a plural number of anecdotes all with sample bias is not necessarily data and any attempt to create a correlation will run into problems.
- mslate 13y agoThe plural of anecdote is anecdotes. The plural of datum is data. Datum != anecdote. Data != anecdotes. QED.
- greedo 13y agoAnd of course, college professors are completely unbiased in evaluating MOOCs...
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoI welcome high-quality MOOCs. I think competition will improve in-person offerings, especially at smaller colleges. I grow tired of getting low-quality students from my prerequisite courses. Sometimes I feel like removing the prerequisite requirements for some of my courses. The quality of some of them are so low.