Learning transfer: does it take place in MOOCs? an investigation into the uptake of functional programming in practice

Guanliang Chen, Dan Davis, Claudia Hauff, Geert Jan Houben

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference PaperResearchpeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The rising number of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) enable people to advance their knowledge and competencies in a wide range of fields. Learning though is only the first step, the transfer of the taught concepts into practice is equally important and often neglected in the investigation of MOOCs. In this paper, we consider the specific case of FP101x (a functional programming MOOC on edX) and the extent to which learners alter their programming behaviour after having taken the course. We are able to link about one third of all FP101x learners to GitHub, the most popular social coding platform to date and contribute a first exploratory analysis of learner behaviour beyond the MOOC platform. A detailed longitudinal analysis of GitHub log traces reveals that (i) more than 8% of engaged learners transfer, and that (ii) most existing transfer learning findings from the classroom setting are indeed applicable in the MOOC setting as well.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale
EditorsVincent Aleven, Judy Kay, Ido Roll
Place of PublicationNew York NY USA
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Pages409-418
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9781450337267
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes
EventAnnual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale 2016 - University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Duration: 25 Apr 201626 Apr 2016
Conference number: 3rd
http://learningatscale.acm.org/las2016/

Conference

ConferenceAnnual ACM Conference on Learning at Scale 2016
Abbreviated titleL@S 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityEdinburgh
Period25/04/1626/04/16
Internet address

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