{"title":"MOOC construction for life education in Chinese universities: an analytical study.","authors":"Fengling Xu, Junqing Zhang, Qiqi Zhou, Shaoyu Mou","doi":"10.3389/fpubh.2025.1569881","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>With the advancement of the Chinese \"Internet Plus\" paradigm, life education has expended through the implementation of Massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, limited research has focused on the present condition and attributes of the building of Chinese life education MOOCs.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>To systematically analyze the current status and attributes of life education MOOCs in China, assess the quality of the courses, and give a reference for the development of life education MOOCs in the country.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>We select China's online education platform and utilize the search terms \"Health OR Life OR Death OR Psychology OR Nutrition OR Exercise OR Well-being OR Love OR Ethics\" to identify MOOCs pertinent to life education. Analyze and summarize the courses about platforms, schools, regions, objectives, contents, assessments, credit hours, number of sessions and number of learners. The quality of the course was assessed utilizing Quality Matters (QM).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>In China, 129 life education MOOCs were provided in six online education platforms. The quantity of courses originating from \"double first-class\" universities, general universities and higher vocational universities was 44, 40, and 45, respectively. The quantity of courses from eastern regions was 106, while from western regions it was 23. The course contents covered three domains: life education, death education, and life value education. Credit hours, course sessions and the number of course learners exhibit statistically significant differences among regions and school types (<i>p</i> < 0.05). 47.3% of the QM scores were 60-84%, indicating subpar overall course quality. 19 life education MOOCs were provided in foreign platforms Coursera and edX, with 52.6% having course duration of less than 16 h and 47.4% catering to over 100,000 participants.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Chinese life education MOOC is resource-rich and has a substantial learner base. However, issues persist, including inconsistent course quality, limited personalization of course content, and significant disparities between eastern and western regions. In the future, Chinese life education MOOC should align with the development in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, address the disparities between Eastern and Western areas, and integrate with worldwide platforms.</p>","PeriodicalId":12548,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Public Health","volume":"13 ","pages":"1569881"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12263702/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Public Health","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1569881","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PUBLIC, ENVIRONMENTAL & OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: With the advancement of the Chinese "Internet Plus" paradigm, life education has expended through the implementation of Massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, limited research has focused on the present condition and attributes of the building of Chinese life education MOOCs.
Objectives: To systematically analyze the current status and attributes of life education MOOCs in China, assess the quality of the courses, and give a reference for the development of life education MOOCs in the country.
Methods: We select China's online education platform and utilize the search terms "Health OR Life OR Death OR Psychology OR Nutrition OR Exercise OR Well-being OR Love OR Ethics" to identify MOOCs pertinent to life education. Analyze and summarize the courses about platforms, schools, regions, objectives, contents, assessments, credit hours, number of sessions and number of learners. The quality of the course was assessed utilizing Quality Matters (QM).
Results: In China, 129 life education MOOCs were provided in six online education platforms. The quantity of courses originating from "double first-class" universities, general universities and higher vocational universities was 44, 40, and 45, respectively. The quantity of courses from eastern regions was 106, while from western regions it was 23. The course contents covered three domains: life education, death education, and life value education. Credit hours, course sessions and the number of course learners exhibit statistically significant differences among regions and school types (p < 0.05). 47.3% of the QM scores were 60-84%, indicating subpar overall course quality. 19 life education MOOCs were provided in foreign platforms Coursera and edX, with 52.6% having course duration of less than 16 h and 47.4% catering to over 100,000 participants.
Conclusion: Chinese life education MOOC is resource-rich and has a substantial learner base. However, issues persist, including inconsistent course quality, limited personalization of course content, and significant disparities between eastern and western regions. In the future, Chinese life education MOOC should align with the development in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, address the disparities between Eastern and Western areas, and integrate with worldwide platforms.
期刊介绍：
Frontiers in Public Health is a multidisciplinary open-access journal which publishes rigorously peer-reviewed research and is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians, policy makers and the public worldwide. The journal aims at overcoming current fragmentation in research and publication, promoting consistency in pursuing relevant scientific themes, and supporting finding dissemination and translation into practice.
Frontiers in Public Health is organized into Specialty Sections that cover different areas of research in the field. Please refer to the author guidelines for details on article types and the submission process.
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