The importance of motivation and communication in MOOCs as elements to increase completion rates: A study at MOOCs on Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change is the greatest environmental, social and economic threat of our time and affects all forms of life on earth. Although important advances have been made such as the Paris agreement, social action is needed to mobilize the population. Education needs to become a fundamental tool for climate change mitigation, adaptation and resilience. Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are a good tool to boost Climate literacy through education to address this issue due to their characteristics. We have used this tool to investigate the Climate Competence in primary and secondary teachers and developed a research program around this issue. In this paper, we look into one particular problem of the MOOCs: The high dropout rate. We discuss what are some of the reasons for this high dropout rate in the literature and describe how the MOOC can be designed to overcome this issue. We also look, into the different characteristics that online formation can have to affect this rate. We also discuss what is the dropout rate in our courses and how our design choices have improved the expected finalization rates.