Why do MOOCS have low completion rates? - pskittle
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briandh
Two reasons similar/in addition to the ones already mentioned:

The obvious one: MOOCs usually involve small or no payment and are not
typically part of a degree program. Everyone who has attended a traditional
college has taken one or several classes where they disliked the material, the
format, or the faculty but kept taking it anyway because it was a required
course, they needed the credit hours to stay in good standing, or they had
already paid nontrivial tuition and/or fees for it. For most MOOCs, if you are
even mildly disappointed, you can just drop out with little remorse.

The second, less obvious one: on Coursera, I bookmark courses (including ones
I have only tenuous interest in) months ahead by enrolling in them. Then when
the course starts, I judge whether I still have the time or interest (I
usually don't), and if not, drop out. I don't know if this is common, but if
it is, then it would have an impact.

I'd also be curious to know how pacing impacts completion rates. Personally,
while some platforms treat it as a selling point, I find it very difficult to
complete self-paced courses. On the other hand, some people may miss one or
two deadlines in a non-self-paced MOOC and simply give up.

~~~
HelloMcFly
Another factor from my experience: I don't feel much incentive to "complete" a
MOOC. I take a MOOC to learn something to a certain degree, and once I feel
I've acquired the knowledge I was looking for I move on. Perhaps this is to my
detriment long-term, but it seems like a more economical use of my time given
so many competing interests.

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heurist
They're too long. Once in a while I enjoy spending 5 to 8 hours on a Saturday
learning about something new, but MOOCs often ask for an entire semesters
worth of my time. I don't have that much time, I have an occasional Saturday.
Divide the courses up into free-standing bite sized chunks, something I can go
through in a day, and let me complete them on my own time. I'd complete more
of them if that happened. That should also force brevity, which was lacking in
a lot of courses I tried.

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patio11
It's relative. They've got low completion rates relative to university
courses. They have completion rates right where you'd expect given a more
reasonable reference class.

A MOOC is essentially an extended web interaction, not a college course. _Very
short_ web interactions which require _minimal_ levels of work often have
conversion rates in the 5~20% region. Think like "Fill out a survey" or "Make
free bingo cards."

MOOCs require many hours of work, stretched over months.

Physical college courses carry a heavy precommitment to attend with _gigantic_
costs associated with them. They also have a low completion rate in many
circumstances, for example when the college hasn't already done an absolutely
brutal filter based on a combination of socioeconomic status, IQ, and ability
to take complex tasks to completion. MOOCs don't typically pre-filter based on
those criteria, which means their completion numbers are affected in the
predictable fashions.

~~~
webhat
Just asking for a few pennies to take part would up the completion rate and
reduce the frivolous sign ups.

~~~
pnt12
I feel that would be really unnecessary and possibly harmful to the MOOCs
themselves.

1 - Sign ups alone require nearly no resources from the provider.

2 - Attendance and therefore popularity could be much lower. While that could
be a good thing (less people and more money -> more support to each student),
it would probably never be enough to cover a course's cost.

In the end, people are learning. I haven't completed any course yet (attended
about 4, attending one now), but I'm thankful for them and I don't think the
resources I used harmed the MOOCs.

~~~
webhat
The pennies are obviously not to cover the cost of the MOOC. It the sunk-cost
effect, people are more likely to use or complete something they pay for.

~~~
HolyHaddock
Not for pennies. People whoe aren't willing to exercise regularly to make use
of hundred pound gym subscriptions are unlikely to finish a MOOC because of a
few pennies.

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PeterisP
In many cases, people don't have an intent to complete it even at the point
when they're signing up.

I have signed up for updated versions of courses I had finished earlier simply
because I wanted to show three minutes of lesson 4.2 to someone, and I've told
my students to "sign up" for course X because its materials at week 4 explain
a particular concept very well, and I'd recommend them to watch that - but the
materials aren't available if you don't sign up.

In real life, if someone takes a brochure of a course because they're
interested but never show up afterwards, you don't count those people against
your completion rate (you might count them when evaluating your marketing
funnel, though). Similarly, for a MOOC it makes no sense to treat the number
of "signups" as anything more than that.

If you want a reasonable completion rate, you divide the number of graduates
against the number of participants that (a) showed up to the course - actually
listened to more than 20 minutes of lectures and (b) actually wanted to
complete the whole course, as opposed to wanting only a single topic/part of
the course.

~~~
briandh
> I have signed up for updated versions of courses I had finished earlier
> simply because I wanted to show three minutes of lesson 4.2 to someone, and
> I've told my students to "sign up" for course X because its materials at
> week 4 explain a particular concept very well, and I'd recommend them to
> watch that - but the materials aren't available if you don't sign up.

Yes, I really wish Coursera et al would have "lecture archives" which didn't
require login or, if they did, didn't require joining a class. This would help
boost their completion rates, so it would be mutually beneficial. I suppose a
few of the partner universities might like having restrictions on their
content, though.

~~~
webhat
I've been creating my own offline lecture archive. There are a number of
downloaders which are tacitly accepted and even promoted on Coursera.

------
anthony_franco
Why do gyms have low attendance rates?

I think it's all just human psychology. We overestimate the amount of effort
we'll give to a achieve a certain goal. And sometimes just having the gym
membership/MOOC purchase is enough to satisfy our feelings of progress.

~~~
bbody
I totally agree! Just would like to add onto that, why do side-projects have
such low completion rates?

I struggle with side-projects as much as I do MOOC's, for the same reasons I
think.

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marmot1101
From my personal experience: It's the first thing off the island when my
schedule gets pinched. I can't cut back on work, don't want to cut out family
or rec time. The MOOC suffers first, particularly the deliverables. I've
started with the intention of turning in all assignments only to end up only
watching the lectures.

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jxm262
My personal experience is that I've taken MOOC courses with an end goal of
_actual learning_ the topic thoroughly, or at least getting the most out of
the subject. This was related, but different than my objectives in college,
where I was mostly concerned about my _grades_ and completing a degree to show
employers. Although, not mutually exclusive, I find that when I'm focused on
learning the subject completely, I'll eventually go off the normal course
guidelines and spend extra time on supplemental materials (blogs, additional
explanations, etc..). I'll also spend extra time completing all the
assignments as perfect as possible (doing the extra sections, etc..). This is
different than when I was in college, where I would often trade off a few
extra grade percentage in order to make a deadline to achieve that A- or
whatever. Couple this with the fact that I defer the MOOC assignments if
work/life gets in the way and eventually I miss the projects and test due
dates.

IMO (speaking personally here) - I find this approach to be Much more
beneficial than the traditional college system. I learn the material better
and have a deeper understanding of the entire subject. I've officially
"failed" every MOOC course I've taken, because of missed due-dates. But when I
look through the actual submissions, I usually receive near 100% on every
assignment. This probably wouldn't apply to every topic, but the MOOC courses
give me a structured way to learn that I wouldn't be able to come up with on
my own, but also provide enough flexibility for family life, work, etc..

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BorgHunter
Low barrier to entry. I've signed up for MOOCs in the past that sounded really
cool, because why not?, only later to find that I didn't have the time, or
maybe the MOOC wasn't as cool as I thought it was. In cases where there's
actually some tangible investment required to sign up--Georgia Tech's OMSCS
program[0] is a prime example of this--completion rate is much higher.

[0] [http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/](http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/)

~~~
agumonkey
My exact experience too. Signing is easy as bookmarking any webpage.
Afterwards nature will just prune you out of the classes with bad
difficulty/desire ratios.

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Retric
For much the same reasons that people don't finish books.

In the end the completion rate of a MOOC is a fairly meaningless statistic.
It's completely reasonable to buy a technical book and only read a few
chapters that cover what you want to know. If someone gains more from
participating in 3 MOOCS vs finishing 1 then a low completion rate might be a
sign that MOOCS are more useful than traditional classes not less.

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clavalle
The commitment level is low. People put their name on a list as opposed to
shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars for a traditional class.

The reward level is also low. You might get a certificate but nothing like
credits that can transfer. You mainly just get knowledge.

I think it is a lot like going to the library. I've got three books checked
out right now. I've browsed one of them and decided it is pretty useless and
not quite what I expected. One looks really good but I haven't started it. It
is by one of my favorite authors but it wasn't on my radar, I just picked it
up because it was on the shelf. One I am halfway through and I intend on
finishing it but it is taking about three times longer to finish because
Hofstadter's Law applies to my reading list, too.

But my completion rate is the wrong metric. Over the past year I've probably
read a dozen or more books that I wouldn't have otherwise if it weren't for my
local library. And one lead me to buying the other six in the series, and a
couple I've bought as reference.

I feel like MOOCs should be judged in the same way. There are a lot of people
gaining education through MOOCs that they would not have otherwise.

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Gdiddy
The behavioural economic concept of 'hyperbolic discounting' serves as a
pretty good explanation. We radically discount delayed consequences (e.g.:
learning), while simultaneously overestimating our willingness to invest
effort into the future.

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brudgers
Dan Grossman at University of Washington gave a presentation of the data from
his Coursera MOOC's:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T4IQrOJr5U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T4IQrOJr5U)

The punchlines are that completion rates correlate with course duration and
that the absolute numbers of people who complete a course are a quantum
change.

The point of comparison in Grossman's view is that MOOC's are like textbooks
more than traditional courses.

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selleck
I would say that is a feature and not a bug.

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VaedaStrike
I often use the vids as information fodder for listening while i work. If
something strikes me as more salient, or potentially useful for my future
needs then I'll make a note to set aside time outside of work to really pay
attention to the course.

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padamop
[http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~padamopo/What%20makes%20a%20grea...](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~padamopo/What%20makes%20a%20great%20MOOC.pdf)
This paper discusses some of the reasons for low completion rates.

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ialex
Basically people do not finish the courses because they are not really
interested or are not disciplined enough.

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kingkawn
It seems that outside the context of the coercion of earning a degree most of
the professors are boring as hell.

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Blackthorn
Low in whose opinion? I always thought MOOCs had fantastically high completion
rates for what they are.

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jedanbik
Why would they have high ones? That's the better question to ask.

------
graycat
Why? Drawing from my experience learning some technical material, I will give
some candidate answers:

(1) Content. From what I've seen of MOOCs in some areas where I know some
things, usually the content looks poor just on the subject itself and/or its
presentation, i.e., too many of the lectures are just poorly done in any
common sense of good lectures. E.g., start in the upper, left corner of the
board and write clearly, clearly enough so that a student can take essentially
perfect notes.

(2) Purpose. Commonly the courses do not have a sufficiently clear and
meaningful _purpose_ for enough candidate students.

E.g., why study calculus? What MOOCs provide a really clear answer meaningful
even to most of the people who consider a course in calculus?

E.g., why'd I study calculus? In., in grades 1-8 I got dumped on by the
teachers; those teachers wanted to teach to the girls with their better
handwriting, better verbal talent and skills, better clerical talent, better
insight into fictional literature, and much better classroom _decorum_. I
wanted, strongly beyond belief, to know how _things_ worked, and the girls
were little masters at knowing how the teachers _worked_!

In grade 9 I discovered I could do math, i.e., _algebra_ and fairly easily
could lead the class. Essentially all the girls in the class, all of whom had
effortlessly blown me away in grades 1-8 now were struggling while I was
having a great time, easily.

I got sent to a math tournament. That success continued in grades 10-12. In
the 11th grade, I saw the same for physics -- could usually have my head down
in class, resting, and still be one of the best students in the class -- of
mostly 12th graders, three of whom went to Princeton and ran against each
other and some fourth sucker for President of the freshman class. I got sent
to an NSF math and physics summer program.

So, in college, I was _hot to go_ in math and quickly went through the course
catalog and planned all the math courses I would have for all four years. I
really liked math!

But to save money, I did my freshman college year at a state school,
inexpensive, I could walk to. They forced me into a course in _college
algebra_ beneath what I'd already done in high school (by far the best in the
city, e.g., the three guys who went to Princeton; MIT came recruiting; a guy I
beat in a shootout at the board in trig class went to MIT). A girl told me
when the tests were, and I showed up only for those.

But, I knew that as a freshman I was supposed to be learning calculus and was
_torqued_ that I was not. So I got the recommended calculus book and dug in.
In grades 9-12 I'd learned mostly just from the book so also was able to do
well working through the calculus book, totally independently.

I did well: E.g., I had quite nice college board scores, especially in math
and physics, so, the next year (we had a little more money) I got into a good
four year college.

So, where to start there in math? Okay, I asked to start with just their
sophomore calculus. They said that they couldn't give me credit for first year
calculus, but that was totally fine with me. The text they used was the same
as Harvard used; it was good. I did fine -- made As, loved the material, had
fun, didn't work at it very hard. Right: I was a math major but never really
took a course in freshman calculus!

Also blew away everyone in their freshman physics course -- first test had
four questions; I got all four; no other student got more than two; tree
counted as 100; so I got 133; and I never missed anything for the rest of the
semester so ended up with 33 points over a perfect score. The second semester,
missed only one test question.

Went on and got honors in math, got a Ph.D. in applied math (stochastic
optimal control), have had math much of my career, and now have some original
math I derived as the crucial core technology for my search engine start up.
Lesson: I've had a _purpose_ in mind learning math.

So, I did learn calculus, just on my own for freshman calculus. So, why? Sure:
(a) Motivation. I really, really, really wanted to know the material, not just
a little bit but a lot. (b) Resources. I had plenty of time to do the work.
(c) Preparation. The four years of math I took in high school gave me about
everything one could want in prerequisites for calculus. (d) While I didn't
know much about just what I would do with calculus or math after college, I
did believe that they should help my career, and I knew that, for math,
calculus was one of the biggies.

Okay, for the MOOCs, if have (a)-(d) and some good materials, then lots of
students should do well. If are not having many students are doing well, then
look first at (a)-(d) and the materials. From what I've seen, too commonly the
course materials are not very good.

E.g., for calculus, from what I've seen, it appears that the courses want to
imply the a person can learn calculus easily as a _spectator_ (sport) watching
videos instead of doing the work studying good materials, say, a good text. I
doubt that many students could learn calculus as a spectator sport.

There really can be opportunities for people to learn outside a classroom, and
online materials can help. But need good materials, likely including a good,
traditional text book, and also need, say, (a)-(d) above.

By the way, as a math grad student, I taught calculus successfully. As an MBA
prof, I taught more in applied math successfully. In my career, I continued to
learn on my own: E.g., for some weeks I carried Blackman and Tukey, _The
Measurement of Power Spectra_ to dinner at a seafood bar in Silver Spring, MD,
and then one week, mostly on my own without my company knowing about it, wrote
some corresponding software which was a big help in our company winning a
competitive software development contract -- my work on power spectra
estimation had in effect given our company _sole source_.

Lesson 1: Math can make money.

Lesson 2: It is possible to do the work of math making money mostly via
independent study.

Lesson 3: I doubt that any of the MOOCs will cover how to measure power
spectra, say, with the fast Fourier transform (FFT)!

How about a continuous time, discrete state space Markov process subordinated
to a Poisson process? Make money with that? Did that once. Covered well in a
MOOC? I doubt it!

I used to look at MOOCs, wanted to learn more about, say, stochastic processes
in continuous time, say, like in Gihman and Skorohod or Lipster and Shiryayev
or Karatzas and Shreve. Gee, I didn't find much!

There is high irony here: This is Hacker News, and my view is that nearly all
the learning crucial for the current US _information technology_ industry,
especially the software part of it, has been from essentially just independent
study. So, the irony is that the readers of Hacker News should be about the
best audience for MOOCs.

E.g., for a while in my career, when I was fairly deep into computing but
before I'd ever had a course in computing or computer science, I taught
several sections of _computer science_ at Georgetown University. Later in grad
school, I was pushed to take a course in _computer science_ \-- not much past
what I'd taught at Georgetown! At one point, sure, the course tried to cover
quicksort. Okay, worthwhile for such a course! But I'd long since learned
quicksort, heap sort, Shell sort, bubble sort, merge sort, etc. from some
original papers and Knuth's _The Art of Computer Programming_ , programmed all
those that were _in-place_ sort algorithms, compared their performance,
programmed some special purpose versions, etc. So, during the course, I just
watched and smiled. Gee, they neglected to mention that in the _bit reversed_
permutation from some of the versions of the fast Fourier transform, Shell
sort does nothing at all until the last pass at which time it runs in O(N^2)!
Gee, why didn't they mention that one!

Lesson: It's possible to do well in computing and computer science with
independent study.

Surprise: One of the profs in that course didn't like me and gave me a grade
of C. I appealed to the department, pointed to some code I'd submitted in my
application to the department, the code I'd written to schedule the fleet at
FedEx, the code I'd written for power spectral estimation, etc., and the next
year that prof was gone!

Lesson: If the Hacker News audience is not doing well with MOOCs, then blame
the MOOCs, not the students!

