Coordinating Collaborative Chat in Massive Open Online Courses
This addresses coordination challenges for MOOC students to improve social engagement without increasing attrition, but it is incremental as it builds on prior research.
The study tackled the problem of coordination difficulties in collaborative chat interventions in MOOCs by testing a rolling admission approach instead of requiring pre-matched partners. The results showed the most positive impact occurred when students chatted with exactly one partner, with qualitative analysis suggesting differential experiences across configurations.
An earlier study of a collaborative chat intervention in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) identified negative effects on attrition stemming from a requirement for students to be matched with exactly one partner prior to beginning the activity. That study raised questions about how to orchestrate a collaborative chat intervention in a MOOC context in order to provide the benefit of synchronous social engagement without the coordination difficulties. In this paper we present a careful analysis of an intervention designed to overcome coordination difficulties by welcoming students into the chat on a rolling basis as they arrive rather than requiring them to be matched with a partner before beginning. The results suggest the most positive impact when experiencing a chat with exactly one partner rather than more or less. A qualitative analysis of the chat data reveals differential experiences between these configurations that suggests a potential explanation for the effect and raises questions for future research.