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Self-Regulated Learning in MOOCs:
Do Open Badges and Certificates of
Attendance Motivate Learners to
Invest More
Simone Haug, Katrin Wodzicki, Ulrike Cress and Johannes
Moskaliuk
Abstract: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) claim to offer self-regulated learning. Learners decide which
activities they will undertake, structure the provided learning content themselves and connect with other learners.
But are learners in MOOCs really that active Based on theoretical approaches concerning self-regulated learning,
intrinsic motivation and self-determination, we present the concept of ‘open badges’ as a form of certification
in self-regulated learning settings. We conducted a study during a MOOC and analyzed logfile data as well as
questionnaire data. We looked at the relation between learners’ activities and their self-set goal of achieving
an open badge or a certificate of attendance. The results showed that learners’ activities decrease continuously
over time, but that this decrease was smaller for learners who aimed to achieve an open badge or a certificate of
attendance. We discuss why open badges and certificates of attendance could serve as adequate motivators.
Introduction
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a new format
for online courses. They are open to everyone and
participation is voluntary and self-responsible, which
makes them a new and interesting learning format.
MOOCs take a new didactical approach that is fully learner-centered:
it is not the teacher who structures learning
and interaction. The learners freely decide upon which
activities they undertake and what content they want to
know about. In their self-determined activities, learners
create their own space of interaction (Siemens, 2011) and
interact with other members of the learning community.
So in a MOOC, it is expected that learners will not only
receive learning content passively, but also actively select
information they see as interesting and relevant, discuss
it with others or create any kind of artifact that they can
save or share with others. Through a Web 2.0 infrastructure
the learners can aggregate, remix, repurpose or forward
content to others (Downes, 2012). The teachers
take the role of facilitators and provide, besides learning
materials, a technical infrastructure that supports communication
and interaction.
But are learners in MOOCs really that active Do they
really regulate their actions themselves and make use
of the provided technical and social environment From
many online settings we know that active participation is
weak (Kimmerle & Cress, 2009, 2008). Some researchers
have observed that participation in MOOCs reflects certain
types of behavior similar to those in online communities
(Nielsen, 2006): 90% of users are ‘lurkers’ that never
contribute, 9% contribute little and 1% of users account
for almost all action taken (Robes, 2012). Although more
and more MOOCs are provided and seem to attracted
huge numbers of participants, there is a lack of research
into what makes people really engage in MOOCs instead
of only registering as participants. This study aims at describing
just how active learners are in MOOCs, and at
investigating whether learners’ continued involvement is
related to individual factors like media literacy, motivation,
interest and embeddedness in the learning community.
Our first step is to provide some insight into the concept
of Massive Online Open Courses and show why they
represent a prototype of intrinsic learning. We then take
up the current discussion of open badges (Sharples et
al., 2012, pp. 16-18) and show how these badges could
serve as self-set goals that support a learner’s engagement
in the course. We present data from Open Course
12, a MOOC about E-Learning Trends which took place in
2012 with 1400 participants.
Massive Open Online Courses
The first course labeled as an Open Course took place in
2008 and was organized by George Siemens and Stephen
Downes. They opened up their course about ‘Connectivism
and Connective Knowledge’ to learners who wanted
to participate but were not interested in course credit
(Cormier & Siemens, 2010). In this case there were no admission
restrictions. The course ran over 14 weeks, with
each week devoted to a different topic. Since 2008 several
Open Courses have taken place with large numbers of
participants. The example of Sebastian Thurn, a teacher at
Stanford University, has shown that participation in Open
Online Courses can become massive. In the fall of 2011
he offered the free of charge online class ‘Introduction to
Artificial Intelligence’ in collaboration with Peter Norvig.
160,000 students participated and over 23,000 students
from 190 countries graduated. In 2012 he left Stanford
Research Track | 66