Facebook Schools MOOCs on Engagement - Jason Schmitt, EdSurge

If MOOCs want to build student engagement, they may want to take a lesson from Facebook. That’s the takeaway from a recent study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, who found students favor using Facebook groups over MOOC forums in part because they have more positive interactions on the social media site and feel a stronger sense of community there. Trust plays a role; on Facebook the students tended to use their “real” names and could see one another’s profiles. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory analyzed data on student use of forums for three MOOCs from Coursera and course-related Facebook groups, and interviewed instructors and a dozen students. The research was presented at the ACM conference on Learning at Scale. https://www.edsurge.com/news/2016-05-19-facebook-schools-moocs-on-engagement