Students of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are not your typical college kids. These are older people, many with advanced degrees. They participate in online courses because they are curious about the subject matter, and they are motivated, in part, by the courses’ being free of charge.
Matt Rourke/Associated Press University of Pennsylvania professor Peter Struck, with teaching assistant Cat Gillespie, teaches a mythology class during a live recording of a massive open online class, or MOOC, in Philadelphia. Those findings, part of a new study, one of the first to take stock of the demographics and motivations of online course participants and conducted by education technology company Instructure Inc. and research firm Qualtrics, might calm the nerves of higher-education administrators who worry about online education replacing standard degrees. For now, these courses appear to compete for student attention more with television shows, rather than with brick-and-mortar classrooms.
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To read the original article: New Study of Free Online Courses Sheds Light on MOOCs - Venture Capital Dispatch - WSJ
