MOOC User Persistence: Lessons from French Educational Policy Adoption and Deployment of a Pilot Course

Abstract

This research explores user persistence in a massive open online course (MOOC) that was set up as an experiment before the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research launched in October 2013 the French Digital University initiative-a French platform for MOOCs. Persistence was looked into from the perspective of emotions. Digital trail data, demographic data and data from six scales were analysed. The scales were Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS) plus the Flow in Education scales (EduFlow). Results show that many registrants logged on, participated in activities and accessed resources seldom, while a few persisted and were active. Correlations between persistence and residence in Europe or Africa were found as well as patterns relating to negative affect and to well-being, again linked to geographic variables. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.