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How COVID-19 Affected Computer Science MOOC Learner Behavior and Achievements: A Demographic Study

Published: 01 June 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Learner data from multiple instances of two introductory Python MOOCs, offered before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, were analyzed to see if and how learner behavior and overall learning outcomes changed during the pandemic. We found a surge in interest during the pandemic, but the certification rate fell short of the pre-pandemic average. Moreover, this drop in certification rate is more noticeable for the advanced course in the sequence, and is more pronounced in groups traditionally underrepresented in computer-science and coding communities. Additionally, we analyzed learners' interaction with one another on the course discussion forum, and performed a sentiment analysis of the forum comments using natural language processing, which revealed behavioral trends that differed significantly during the pandemic.

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  1. How COVID-19 Affected Computer Science MOOC Learner Behavior and Achievements: A Demographic Study

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    L@S '22: Proceedings of the Ninth ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale
    June 2022
    491 pages
    ISBN:9781450391580
    DOI:10.1145/3491140
    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

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    Published: 01 June 2022

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    Author Tags

    1. COVID-19
    2. MOOCs
    3. change in learning behavior and attainment
    4. natural language processing
    5. underrepresentation in computer science

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    • United States Air Force Research Laboratory

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    L@S '22
    L@S '22: Ninth (2022) ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale
    June 1 - 3, 2022
    NY, New York City, USA

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    Overall Acceptance Rate 117 of 440 submissions, 27%

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