FORUM USERS’ ACTIVITY AND THE ROLE OF ANSWER PERSONS IN A PROGRAMMING MOOC

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have given a new meaning to web-based learning and have a substantial position in today’s education. As MOOCs are fully web-based and free of charge courses, therefore they are characterised by a large number of participants. This leads to the situation where the interaction between the participant and instructor is decreasing in time. In a MOOC discussion forums are widely used for the communication between the participants and instructors. There are several roles in the virtual communication environment, which can be differentiated by the behaviour of the participants. Here the participants taking the help giving position can play an important role in the virtual communication setting and in the progress of other participants.This study gives an overview of the forum activity and about the role of the answer persons in forums in an advanced level programming MOOC. We seek answers for how much the participants received assistance from the answer persons’ answers in the forums, but also investigate the answer persons’ motives to answer the participants questions and post in forums. The data was collected from 1048 participants (55.33% male and 44.67% female) attending the advanced programming MOOC in March 2018. The final sample consisted of 215 participants, who filled the post-questionnaire, which was 20.52% of the registered users. Their average age was 34.40 (SD = 9.96). For investigating the answer persons, we detected super active forum users, who posted in the forums remarkably more than the other participants. From the super active forum users we were able to identify 10 answer persons (seven male and three female). The average age of the answer persons was 43.40 (SD = 6.96). A questionnaire with specified questions about the motives for posting in forums was sent to the answer persons. The data of the study consisted of the amount of forum posts, forum logs from the study environment, the answers of the post-questionnaire belonging to the course and the answers of the answer persons’ questionnaire. In the used questionnaires, several questions regarding the usage of forums (posting, getting hints and references etc.) or the motives of the answer persons for posting were posed and analysed using mixed methods. The results revealed that the amount of active forum users was 17.25%, which is higher than the common share in MOOCs. About half of the participants stated that they definitely received help from the answers in a forum by the other participants and around 75% of the participants stated that they received help from the answers in a forum at least half of the cases identified. The participants stated that in the forums a supportive and friendly atmosphere was established. Still, there were participants to whom the self-confidence of some forum posts was displeasing. When investigating the answers of the answer persons, the intention to help motivated them the most, but also the need to share their knowledge with others. The study also revealed that the answer persons give answers in the forums with the expectation to get help if needed.