Role of Teacher's Pedagogy and MOOC Awareness among Learners in MOOC Retention: A Survey Study

Massive open online course (MOOC) is a modern pedagogic technique in 21st century witnessing a huge demand among Indian students. To discern the effectiveness of this modern method, studies conducted in the past signify that only a small proportion of MOOC participants go on to complete their courses. And relatively a little awareness exists about the MOOC design and implementation factors which affect MOOC retention. Retention in MOOCs is considered carefully in the context of the non-retaining learner, now- completing population as well as people completing MOOC- with the learning experience best suited to their needs. It could be influenced by several factors such as MOOC-awareness among learners, teacher to Learner Interaction, Information Delivery Technology, Course fees, Inclusion of assignments, Employability and pedagogical role of a teacher who creates course content, course structure. The present study revolves on only two independent variables which are Teacher's Pedagogical Roles and MOOC-awareness among learners considered as significant predictors of MOOC-retention. Here, a teacher means subject instructor involved in the development of Massive Open Online Course. This study comprises pre-MOOC and post-MOOC surveys of learners’ perception towards Massive open online course retention. The survey is based on response from316 participants including 104 MOOC-users and 212 non-MOOC users from higher educational institutions of Delhi and NCR. One of the goals of this study is to identify the co-relation between MOOC-awareness among learners and teachers’ pedagogical roles through a review of a representative survey. The second goal is to analyze the importance of the combination of Teachers’ Pedagogical Roles and MOOC- awareness among learners in the MOOC retention.