In intervention study, MOOCs don’t make the grade
Hopes were sky-high about eight years ago when massive open online courses, known as MOOCs, emerged prominently on the scene. Proponents hoped the free offerings would democratize and revolutionize education by making high-quality courses available to anyone with a computer and internet access. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Student completion rates have been poor, and a major new study looking at the efficacy of behavioral interventions, which had seemed to show some promise in shoring that up, didn’t prove to be a magic bullet. But, researchers say, the results offer some suggestions on the road forward, one that will grow increasingly important if online learning assumes a bigger role in the U.S. education system, as expected. During a 2½ -year study, social scientists from Harvard, Carnegie Mellon University, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Queensland University of Technology in Australia, University of Toronto, and Stanford University set out to prove...