Participantes heterogéneos en MOOCs y sus necesidades de aprendizaje adaptativo

Abstract

Many research works point out the overcrowding and the heterogeneity of participant’s profiles in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) as the main causes of their low completion rate. On the other hand, the methodologies of personalization of the learning, along next to the technologies of the information, that allows to realize techniques of adaptativity, appear in international reports as an effective way to improve the learning. This paper explores the participante’ perception of their adaptive needs in this tupe of course, as well as their relationship with different aspects of the participants, such as: profiles (gender, age, geographical location and academic level), previous experience and knowledge about the topic of the MOOC and motivation to enroll the MOOC. The study is carried out through a survey completes by the participants in the MOOC Campus of Educational Innovation. We conclude that the age or gender of the participants does not significantly influence their need for adaptive techniques in a MOOC. However, living in a Latin American country, working as a manager or enrolling in a MOOC with a specific motivation, are some of the factors that influence in the desire for adaptive techniques in a MOOC. The obtained results will contribute to improve the adaptive designs of the MOOC and will be easily transferable to any online training course, in blended or virtual learning.