Barriers when taking massive open online courses (moocs)

Abstract

Researchers of the traditional higher education system propose a number of factors affecting the admission to a university (barriers to enter) and factors affecting its successful completion (barriers to exit). Massive open online courses (MOOCs) available to any Internet user remove barriers to enter, because anyone can take these courses. But do all the users have equal opportunities to successfully complete them? Are the barriers to exit preserved for MOOCs? Binary logistic regression was used to determine the way that factors related to individual features of each student affect successful completion of online course. The study was based on the Coursera platform administrastive data across four courses of the NRU-HSE that were held from February to July 2014. The results of the analysis show that there is a strong correlation between successful completion of online course and the educational experience. The probability of successful completion of the course is higher among men with higher education diplomas, who have already taken online courses and studied similar disciplines.