Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses
Among all of the learners in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) who intend to complete a course, the majority fail to do so. This intention-action gap is found in many domains of human experience, and research in similar goal pursuit domains suggests that plan-making is a cheap and effective nudge...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
2021
|
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137973 |
| _version_ | 1826192223851511808 |
|---|---|
| author | Yeomans, Michael Reich, Justin |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing Yeomans, Michael Reich, Justin |
| author_sort | Yeomans, Michael |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Among all of the learners in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) who intend to complete a course, the majority fail to do so. This intention-action gap is found in many domains of human experience, and research in similar goal pursuit domains suggests that plan-making is a cheap and effective nudge to encourage follow-through. In a natural field experiment in three HarvardX courses, some students received open-ended planning prompts at the beginning of a course. These prompts increased course completion by 29%, and payment for certificates by 40%. This effect was largest for students enrolled in traditional schools. Furthermore, the contents of students' plans could predict which students were least likely to succeed - in particular, students whose plans focused on specific times were unlikely to complete the course. Our results suggest that planning prompts can help learners adopted productive frames of mind at the outset of a learning goal that encourage and forecast student success. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:08:15Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/137973 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:08:15Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1379732023-02-10T18:30:05Z Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses Yeomans, Michael Reich, Justin Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing Among all of the learners in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) who intend to complete a course, the majority fail to do so. This intention-action gap is found in many domains of human experience, and research in similar goal pursuit domains suggests that plan-making is a cheap and effective nudge to encourage follow-through. In a natural field experiment in three HarvardX courses, some students received open-ended planning prompts at the beginning of a course. These prompts increased course completion by 29%, and payment for certificates by 40%. This effect was largest for students enrolled in traditional schools. Furthermore, the contents of students' plans could predict which students were least likely to succeed - in particular, students whose plans focused on specific times were unlikely to complete the course. Our results suggest that planning prompts can help learners adopted productive frames of mind at the outset of a learning goal that encourage and forecast student success. 2021-11-09T16:47:47Z 2021-11-09T16:47:47Z 2017-03 2019-10-16T13:16:26Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/ConferencePaper https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137973 Yeomans, Michael and Reich, Justin. 2017. "Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses." en 10.1145/3027385.3027416 Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Other repository |
| spellingShingle | Yeomans, Michael Reich, Justin Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses |
| title | Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses |
| title_full | Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses |
| title_fullStr | Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses |
| title_full_unstemmed | Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses |
| title_short | Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses |
| title_sort | planning prompts increase and forecast course completion in massive open online courses |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/137973 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yeomansmichael planningpromptsincreaseandforecastcoursecompletioninmassiveopenonlinecourses AT reichjustin planningpromptsincreaseandforecastcoursecompletioninmassiveopenonlinecourses |