The importance and meaning of session behaviour in a MOOC

Abstract

One of the main challenges for online learners is knowing how to effectively manage their time. Highly autonomous settings, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), put additional pressure on learners in this regard. However, little is known about how learners organise their time in terms of sessions or blocks of time across a MOOC. This study examined session behavioural data of 9272 learners in a MOOC and its relation to their engagement, grade and self-report data measuring aspects of self-regulated learning (SRL). From an exploratory temporal approach using clustering and group comparison tests, we examined how learners distributed sessions in relation to their length and frequency a..