(Dis)Organization and Success in an Economics MOOC
Name
Duflo_Disorganization.pdf
Size
502.62 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
51253d06d35f6279e5a6c1d6e9bf4fe2
Author(s)
Duflo, Esther
Banerjee, Abhijit
Date Issued
May 2014
Journal
American Economic Review
Publisher
American Economic Association
Citation
Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. “(Dis)Organization and Success in an Economics MOOC.” American Economic Review 104, no. 5 (May 2014): 514–518. © 2014 American Economic Association
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) present the potential to deliver high quality education to a large number of students. But they suffer from low completion rates. This paper identifies disorganization as a factor behind failure to complete a MOOC. Students who enroll one day late are 17 percentage points less likely to earn a certificate than students who enroll exactly on time. This reflects selection, but it does seem to be related to demographic characteristics, motivation to complete the course, or ability. This suggests that building in even more structure in the MOOC could be a factor in improving performance.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.104.5.514
