Start Date
11-12-2016 12:00 AM
Description
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are open courses given to any students located anywhere all over the world through the Internet. The rising of MOOCs has profound implications on the education market and millions of participants. However, many MOOCs face a big challenge: the number of registers is often huge, but their participations and completion rates are limited. To address this challenge, in this study we collaborate with one of the largest MOOC platforms in China and use randomized field experimental method to examine the effects of small monetary incentives and private / public social comparison on students’ MOOC participations. The results from the experiment show that small monetary incentives do not significantly increase the students’ MOOC participations, and students’ MOOC participations under private social comparison is significantly lower than those under other conditions, including those in the control group and under public social comparison.
Recommended Citation
Li, Xitong and Zhang, Jiayin, "The Effects of Monetary Incentives and Social Comparison on MOOC Participation: A Randomized Field Experiment" (2016). ICIS 2016 Proceedings. 3.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2016/EBusiness/Presentations/3
The Effects of Monetary Incentives and Social Comparison on MOOC Participation: A Randomized Field Experiment
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are open courses given to any students located anywhere all over the world through the Internet. The rising of MOOCs has profound implications on the education market and millions of participants. However, many MOOCs face a big challenge: the number of registers is often huge, but their participations and completion rates are limited. To address this challenge, in this study we collaborate with one of the largest MOOC platforms in China and use randomized field experimental method to examine the effects of small monetary incentives and private / public social comparison on students’ MOOC participations. The results from the experiment show that small monetary incentives do not significantly increase the students’ MOOC participations, and students’ MOOC participations under private social comparison is significantly lower than those under other conditions, including those in the control group and under public social comparison.