What are the key themes associated with the positive learning experience in MOOCs? An empirical investigation of learners’ ratings and reviews

The disruptive potential of MOOCs has generated increasing scholarly interest in MOOC learning outcomes, particularly learners’ academic performance (Meek, Blakemore, & Marks, 2016; Phan, McNeil, & Robin, 2016) and completion (Engle, Mankoff, & Carbrey, 2015; Hone & El Said, 2016). While academic performance and completion are important measures of learning outcomes in traditional higher education institutions (HEI) settings (Entwistle, 2018), it could be argued that these outcome measures are less relevant to the MOOC teaching and learning context. MOOC learners display a combination of intrinsic, extrinsic, and social motivations when registering for a MOOC (Deng, Benckendorff, & Gannaway, 2017, 2019). Only a small percentage of enrolled learners intend to complete a MOOC and earn a certificate of accomplishment (Evans & Baker, 2016). The majority of MOOC learners are not motivated by educational advancement, such as gaining entry to a postsecondary degree programme (Stich & Reeves, 2017). They tend to be more concerned with achieving personal learning goals than academic achievement (Jung, Kim, Yoon, Park, & Oakley, 2019). Furthermore, learner engagement in MOOCs represents a relatively simple structure when compared with engagement in traditional, credit-bearing university courses (Deng, Benckendorff, & Gannaway, 2020a). These differences draw attention to other measures for evaluating the performance of MOOCs.

Student ratings, or students’ perceived quality of instruction, have been employed by HEIs for decades to provide feedback to enhance the quality of teaching, help students to make enrolment decisions, and facilitate administrative evaluations for promotion and tenure decisions (Cohen, 1980). Similarly, student ratings of MOOCs provide feedback to construct or revamp a MOOC, help prospective learners to select courses for study, and assist university leaders and managers to make investment decisions about future MOOC production. Despite its importance, limited effort has been devoted to analysing and interpreting student ratings and accompanying written feedback on MOOCs. This apparent knowledge gap provides the impetus for the current study. An empirical investigation of student ratings and reviews will contribute to an improved understanding of the study experience in MOOCs. This study limits the scope to the positive study experience and seeks to achieve two research objectives. First, this study aims to identify the key themes contributing positive learning experiences in MOOCs. Second, the study aims to explore the characteristics of each identified theme.

The analysis of the text data yielded 67 concepts. Appendix B provides insights into the connectivity of these concepts and displays the text co-occurrence counts of each concept with every other concept. The 67 concepts are represented by grey nodes and are grouped into six important themes: ‘learning’, ‘understanding’, ‘interesting’, ‘videos’, ‘recommend’, and ‘questions’ (Fig. 2). Each theme has a cluster of concepts that some have commonality, which can be observed from their proximity on the thematic map. The authors examined each theme in greater detail in the rest of this section.

The latent themes with the highest importance and number of hits are displayed in Table 4. Hits represent the number of text segments in the document associated with a theme and the importance of a theme relative to all other themes. The importance of a theme in the text segments is also indicated by the colour of the circles (Fig. 2). The analysis indicates that ‘learning’, ‘understanding’, ‘interesting’, and ‘videos’ are relatively more important themes, and ‘recommend’ and ‘questions’ are less important ones.

‘Learning’ was identified as the most important theme, affirming that MOOCs are designed to enable and facilitate learning. This theme was mostly associated with concepts that describe the characteristics of knowledge learned in MOOCs (e.g. ‘basic’, ‘life’). The proximity of ‘learning’ to the theme ‘recommend’ indicates that individuals who reported the accumulation of knowledge in a MOOC were likely to recommend the MOOC. The excerpts below provide two illustrative examples related to this theme:

‘This course gave me a new experience. I had a great time taking it: learning the language formally from the basics and using the simple basics to build on something fun - the projects - they are games I used to play in childhood!’

‘I highly recommend this course…It was fun, it was not time-consuming, yet I still feel as though I learned a lot that will be applicable to my life.’

There are two important connections within the ‘learning’ theme that merit attention: ‘learning-basic’ and ‘learning-life’. The first connection is the learning-basic path. The likelihood of ‘learning’ being linked to ‘basic’ was 24%. This connection indicates that MOOCs afforded people the opportunity to learn and revisit basic knowledge. Specifically, learners who left positive reviews reported that MOOCs had helped them gain the fundamental knowledge in a new subject area: ‘Where I didn't know a word of Spanish before, I was conversing with my colleagues from Mexico after three months of the class!’.

Learners also reported that MOOCs refreshed the basic knowledge learned previously: ‘I'm a pretty bad cook and took it for inspiration in learning to cook but I also found myself interested in relearning some basic chemistry that faded from my memory long ago.’ MOOCs that teach fundamental knowledge were not only useful to beginners but also advanced learners and experienced practitioners: ‘Although I consider myself as an experienced developer, I learned a lot of basic stuff I didn't know and I didn't learn at school’.

The second connection is the learning-life path. The likelihood of co-occurrence between ‘learning’ and ‘life’ is 20%. This connection highlights the importance of reinforcing the relationship between MOOC content and everyday life. Learners who gave positive reviews indicated that the MOOCs they were studying were designed in a way that showed direct and immediate relevance to daily life. For example: ‘The instructors have done a laudable job of teaching how to integrate learning into your everyday life, and the importance of doing so’, and ‘The course drew on examples from real life and provided a basis to apply it in real life’.

Learners also reported positive impacts from studying MOOCs. For example: ‘This course…reduced the amount of stress I was experiencing and confirmed that I should include some form of mindful meditation in my daily life’, and ‘It helped me in my personal, family, and work life to become a more centred person and more capable of thoroughly caring for my patients’.

The second important theme is ‘understanding’. The theme ‘understanding’ contains two layers of meaning: (a) instructors made the course content easier to understand (e.g. ‘understand’, ‘concepts), and (b) learners made efforts to understand the complex, difficult course content (e.g. ‘time’, ‘week’). Two illustrative examples of excerpts connected to this theme are shown below:

‘The book which he provides for free is very useful to understand the concepts. Along with the assignments by Coursera, I also in parallel solved the problem sets from the book which led to a better understanding.’

‘Great course. Was a little more difficult than I was expecting. Had to re-watch videos multiple times to understand certain concepts.’

Two important connections within this theme, ‘understand-concepts’ and ‘time-week’, are explained in greater detail below. The first connection was the understand-concepts path. The likelihood of co-occurrence between ‘understand’ and ‘concepts’ was 22%. Learners highlighted how MOOC instructors have made the course content easier to understand. Examples of the strategies employed by MOOC instructors included ‘explaining concepts in reasonable length articles’, ‘explaining concepts with visual aids’, ‘revisiting concepts repeatedly throughout the course’, ‘providing real-world examples’, ‘providing additional examples and sample responses’, and ‘constantly being tested on concepts’.

The second prominent connection within the theme ‘understanding’ was the time-week path. The likelihood of co-occurrence between ‘time’ and ‘week’ was 17%. This connection shows the importance of investing plenty of time when studying MOOCs: ‘I spent closer to 18 weeks completing, but I took notes, reviewed before starting each section, and spent extra time on any quiz question that was difficult’.

However, the connection ‘time-week’ should not just be taken literally. This connection emphasises the importance of investing mental effort in MOOCs to understand more complex, difficult course content. Examples of strategies used by learners included ‘re-watching videos multiple times’, ‘pausing videos frequently to take longhand notes’, ‘going back to the resources’, and ‘working with difficult concepts often’. The following excerpt illustrates this point: ‘I spent a lot of time each week of the course…the amount of time I spent on a course also includes taking my own notes, making them digitally available online, doing revision to be sure I understood everything, looking up and learning about formulas and the why behind them, etc.’.

The third important theme was ‘interesting’. This theme was associated with concepts indicating positive affective responses towards a MOOC (e.g. ‘interesting’, ‘engaging’) and the sources of these responses (e.g. ‘professor’, ‘content’). The proximity of ‘interesting’ to the theme ‘recommend’ suggests that learners were likely to recommend a MOOC to other people if they perceived the MOOC to be interesting. Two illustrative examples of excerpts relevant to this theme are displayed below:

‘I enjoyed everything about this class. The professor made the subject fun to learn with wit and humor and always brought up interesting case studies.’

‘I enjoyed taking this class and looked forward to completing the exercises at the end of each chapter. I thought Dr. Chuck was a great teacher, and I found his personality really fun and engagingly silly, which I personally enjoy.’

The interesting-professor path within this theme is an important connection. The likelihood of co-occurrence between ‘interesting’ and ‘professor’ is 14%. This connection illustrates how instructors made a MOOC more interesting. Learners who left positive reviews highlighted the central role instructors played in making MOOCs interesting: ‘The teacher was very thorough in his explanations and made many good analogies and was really pleasant to listen to. He really made the course a lot more fun to follow than I had originally expected’.

Learners commented that MOOCs were entertaining because instructors designed the course content and materials to be interesting. Course content and materials frequently mentioned by participants include but are not limited to ‘choice of topics’, ‘examples’, ‘case studies’, ‘lecture videos’, ‘dialogues between the professor and students in the videos’, ‘assignments’, ‘games’, and ‘supplementary information and links’.

In addition, learners responded positively to communication styles and techniques adopted by MOOC instructors to add interest to the content using expressions such as ‘humorous’, ‘energetic’, ‘enthusiastic’, and ‘passionate’. The following excerpts illustrate how the use of humour made MOOCs interesting: ‘Professor Bates's occasional humour really helps liven up the dull, and sometimes dry material’, and ‘His quirky sense of humour and his abstractionist drawings often made me chuckle and refreshed my attention’.

‘Videos’ were identified as a fourth important theme. This theme incorporates concepts that describe the quality of video lectures (e.g. ‘clear’, ‘easy’) and course components relevant to video lectures (e.g. ‘reading’, ‘examples’). The proximity of the ‘videos’ theme to ‘understanding’, ‘interesting’, and ‘questions’ suggests that videos played an important role in helping learners understand difficult concepts, making MOOCs interesting, and addressing learners’ questions. Two illustrative examples of excerpts relevant to this theme are shown below:

‘Absolutely amazing course. The teachers are clear and easy to understand, the videos are high quality and contain great (and very useful) visual material to supplement the content.’

‘I appreciate the “flipped learning” style of the course, especially as the lecture videos are well filmed and content is explained clearly.’

Within this theme, the videos-reading path stood out as an important connection. The relative distance between videos and reading was close and the likelihood of ‘reading’ being linked to ‘videos’ is 31%. This connection shows that video lectures and reading materials were valuable resources and often complemented each other to create a positive learning experience in MOOCs: ‘It progressively gets more difficult but allowed a lot of reading and watching videos around the subject which creates a sense of becoming an expert at it’, and ‘There is no fluff here. Every video and each reading add something of interest and value to the topics’.

Learners commented on how videos complemented and clarified the reading materials, and vice versa. Some learners also commented that the videos provided a useful summary of the reading materials: ‘The lectures are a re-cap of the readings, so serve as a kind of curation and reminder and helped to cement the learning’, and ‘I frequently felt lost when reading the articles, but the videos helped to some degree.’

The fifth important theme was ‘recommend’. This theme incorporates concepts indicating that learners would recommend a MOOC to other people (e.g. ‘recommend’, ‘courses’). The agglomeration of concepts in the ‘recommend’ theme was lower than for ‘learning’, ‘understanding’, ‘interest’, and ‘videos’, indicating that ‘recommend’ was less complex and multifaceted than the four previously discussed themes. Two illustrative examples of excerpts related to this theme are shown below:

‘Great course and great teacher! I didn't know there were so many distinct perspectives on justice and the good life. I highly recommend it!’

‘The course is well structured; the videos are very good. I can really recommend this course.’

An important connection within this theme was the ‘recommend-anyone’ path. The proximity of these two concepts and the 30% likelihood of co-occurrence indicate a strong relationship in the text document. This connection explains why learners recommended a MOOC. Learners who recommended a MOOC often described their overall learning experiences as ‘good’, ‘great’, ‘excellent’, ‘outstanding’, and ‘perfect’.

Learners also provided specific, detailed reasons when recommending a MOOC. Some learners recommended a MOOC because the MOOC was ‘educational’, ‘informative’ and ‘insightful’. This type of recommendation often came from the learners who reported that they had accumulated new knowledge, mastered new skills, or gained new perspectives: ‘This course is very insightful…I practically learned to manage myself, set goals and follow them…I recommend every smart person to take it.’

Other learners who recommended a MOOC because the MOOC was well-organised, or the selection of topics and materials in the MOOC is appropriate in scope. These learners described MOOCs as ‘structured’, ‘well-constructed’, ‘well-put together’, ‘comprehensive’, and ‘wide-ranging’. The following excerpt illustrates this point: ‘This course was really well-structured, with theory immediately supported by examples and personal witness reports. It tackled broad ideas with understandable examples drawn from world-wide situations…Without doubt the best MOOC, possibly the best course I have ever done.’

In addition, some learners recommended a MOOC because communities in the MOOC were described as ‘supportive’ and ‘helpful’: ‘Discussion groups were helpful and supportive with interaction between students and lecturers… I thoroughly enjoyed this course and would recommend it to anyone interested in permaculture.’ Another learner wrote: ‘I was greatly aided by the comments section in the course where you could bounce ideas off each other. I was honoured to exchange ideas with other much more experienced and helpful online students which made the whole experience really uplifting. I highly recommend this course to the layman and professional alike.’

The sixth theme was labelled ‘questions’. This theme incorporated a concept that indicates getting answers to questions (i.e. ‘questions’). The agglomeration of concepts in ‘questions’ is lower compared to the previously discussed themes, indicating that ‘questions’ represents a relatively simple structure. Two illustrative examples of excerpts pertinent to this theme are provided below:

‘The course is tough, but the instructor explains everything very clearly, and the course staff provides stellar help with questions on the discussion forums.’

‘I think taking questions and putting up videos of answers to questions from learners was an excellent idea and a useful learning tool.’

Within this theme, the questions-discussion path is an important connection. The likelihood of co-occurrence between ‘questions’ and ‘discussion’ is 11%, which is higher than the likelihood of the concept ‘questions’ being linked to every other concept on the thematic map. This connection shows that discussion boards are an important space to ask questions and get help from teaching staff: ‘The mentors…answered as many questions as they were able in the discussion forum and their comments were significant to the course.’

Learners also highlighted that teaching staff addressed their questions in a timely manner: ‘Questions on the discussion board are answered very quickly’, and ‘The educators…were ready to take part in the forum with further explanation and responded promptly to correct occasional inaccuracies.’

In summary, Table 5 displays the six important themes expressed by MOOC learners in their positive ratings and reviews. The table also highlights the characteristics of each theme, including the theme scope, key connections within the theme, and relationships with other themes.

This study has two research objectives. First, the study aims to identify the key themes contributing to the positive learning experience in MOOCs. Second, the study aims to investigate the characteristics of each identified theme. To achieve the research objectives, this study employed a semiautomatic text mining solution and processed 8,475 text segments submitted by learners who participated in 1,794 courses delivered by 382 HEIs and organisations across more than 20 MOOC platforms. Major findings revealed in this study are reported in this section and discussed in conjunction with the MOOC literature and the broader education literature. This study moves the field forward by making five important contributions.

Firstly, this study identified six important, frequently occurring themes related to the positive learning experience in MOOCs. The themes provide new insights into how the learning experience in MOOCs can be enhanced by addressing these six areas. ‘Learning’ emerged as the most salient theme. A closer inspection of the theme ‘learning’ shows that learners placed high importance on making connections between MOOC content and their everyday lives. In view of this, it is recommended that MOOC content should focus on more realistic learning contexts, and instructional conditions in MOOCs should be engineered to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge that can be readily transferred to real-world practices. For example, MOOC instructors could explicitly explain in videos how theories and findings of scientific research are relevant and can be directly applied to daily routine. This finding substantiates Kovanović et al.’s (2018) observation that the ability to describe applications of knowledge and apply learning in real settings is a critical dimension of the online learning experience. The findings also aligns with the pedagogical approach of authentic learning, which situates learning activities in real-world contexts and provides learning opportunities by ‘allowing students to experience the same challenges in the curriculum as they do in their daily endeavors’ (Herrington, Reeves, & Oliver, 2014, p. 402). Authentic learning has been operationalised in the higher education context (e.g. Herrington & Herrington, 2006) but its application has not been well researched in the MOOC context at this point. An important research avenue is to identify and understand the strategies instructors use to make the MOOC content more relevant to learners’ everyday lives. Future research could also adopt a grounded theory approach to provide insight into how MOOC learning can positively affect people’s life. This line of research is important as the learning-life path emerged as a distinct, meaningful connection within the theme ‘learning’, which is one of the core themes contributing to the positive learning experience in MOOCs.

Secondly, this study identified that ‘understanding’ was a prominent theme linked to positive learning experiences in MOOCs. The analysis showed that instructors implemented a variety of strategies to assist MOOC learners with comprehension. Useful strategies reported by MOOC learners included providing short, concise supplementary materials, explaining concepts with visual aids and real-world examples, and repeatedly testing learners on concepts throughout a course. This study provides empirical evidence that improved comprehension is an important contributor to positive learning experiences in MOOCs. This is consistent with the notion that an individual’s appraisal of an event’s comprehensibility elicits interest (Silvia, 2008), and that interest in turn predicts the quality of learning experience (Schiefele & Csikszentmihalyi, 1994). As MOOCs evolve, researchers have proposed several guidelines for designing MOOCs. These guidelines are useful sources for reflecting on the complexity of the MOOC design. However, many of these design principles are based on descriptive and conceptual research (e.g. Spyropoulou, Pierrakeas, & Kameas, 2014) or personal experiences and opinions (e.g. Manallack & Yuriev, 2016). Future research could establish a clear relationship between specific MOOC design principles (e.g. assessments, pedagogies, technologies) and learner comprehension. This is a promising research direction as the current study empirically reveals that learner comprehension is an important contributing factor to the positive learning experience in MOOCs.

The ‘understanding’ theme also had a second layer of meaning that merits further discussion. The analysis demonstrated that learners exerted mental effort to comprehend complex, difficult course content. This included strategies such as re-watching the same video lecture and spending extra time to study MOOCs. This finding confirms the importance of the presence of cognitive engagement in the MOOC learning process. Cognitive engagement is interpreted as individuals’ mental investment in learning to comprehend complex ideas, master difficult skills, and strengthen performance (Deng et al., 2020a). The measurement of cognitive engagement in MOOCs is achieved through either platform-generated log files (Li & Baker, 2018) or self-administrated surveys (Deng, Benckendorff, & Gannaway, 2020b). Li and Baker (2018), for example, found that the learner cohort with higher levels of cognitive engagement achieved higher grades in a MOOC, particularly for individuals who followed the learning path intended by instructors. More recently, Deng et al. (2020b) discovered that learners with higher levels of cognitive engagement were more likely to have completed a MOOC and earned a certificate. These empirical studies show that higher levels of cognitive engagement are associated with favourable MOOC learning outcomes, such as better academic performance and higher completion rates. The results of this study add to past findings that cognitive engagement is also associated with learners’ perceived quality of instruction in MOOCs. An important research direction is to explore learning designs (e.g. educational multimedia design, design of assessments) that bolster cognitive engagement without creating extraneous cognitive load for MOOC participants.

Thirdly, this study identified that ‘interesting’ is a prominent theme linked to positive learning experiences in MOOCs. This finding draws attention to emotional engagement in MOOCs. Deng et al. (2020a) conceptualised emotional engagement as individuals’ affective reactions to peers, instructors, and course content. Empirical research reveals that interest is a key affective component that underlies positive engagement within MOOCs (Deng et al., 2020a). In the MOOC literature, emotional engagement is often investigated by analysing participation in discussion boards (e.g. Comer, Baker, & Wang, 2015). However, only a small percentage of MOOC learners choose to participate in forum discussions. Emotional engagement of the individuals who do not post on MOOC discussion boards should not be overlooked or misrepresented. This study adds to the discussion about emotional engagement beyond MOOC discussion boards. The findings showed that instructors played a central role in making MOOCs interesting to learn through (1) designing the course content and materials to be interesting and (2) employing communication styles and techniques to add interest. A promising avenue for future research is to explore instructional conditions that trigger and maintain MOOC learners’ interest. MOOC platforms can be designed to capture learners’ emotions at different points in time and store the longitudinal trajectories in databases for further analysis. This data would also provide valuable empirical evidence for developing just-in-time support and scaffolding strategies for potential at-risk learners and emotional disengagers.

Fourthly, this study identified that video lectures played a significant part in positive MOOC learning experiences. In this study, ‘videos’ is the only theme in the thematic map that represents instructional strategies. Other instructional strategies, such as reading and discussion, appeared as concepts in the thematic map but did not evolve into bigger themes. This finding confirms other observations that videos were perceived to be an important instructional tool for learning in MOOCs (Stöhr, Stathakarou, Mueller, Nifakos, & McGrath, 2019; Walji, Deacon, Small, & Czerniewicz, 2016; Watson, Kim, & Watson, 2016). A recent study showed that video lectures had more mouse click events than any other learning opportunity on MOOC platforms (Hu, Zhang, Gao, & Wang, 2020). The importance of video lectures is also indicated by the proximity of the theme ‘video’ to three other themes—‘understanding’, ‘interesting’, and ‘questions’. The proximity of ‘videos’ to ‘understanding’ suggests that video lectures enhanced MOOC learners’ understanding of the course. This result is consistent with the findings of the broader education research showing that educational videos are effective in helping students understand difficult concepts when compared with a course session where the videos were not used (Zubair & Laibinis, 2015).

The proximity of ‘videos’ to ‘interesting’ suggests that video lectures can amplify emotional engagement in MOOCs. This result substantiates findings of previous studies. Chen, Wong, Teh, and Chuah (2017) shows that five types of MOOC videos were able to induce positive emotions—picture in picture, text overlay, Khan-style tablet capture, screencast, and animation. However, the study undertaken by Chen et al. (2017) had a relatively small sample size (n = 50) and did not consider learner-based factors (e.g. prior MOOC experience) and teaching context-based factors (e.g. disciplinary focus). Failure to control for these factors may misrepresent the effectiveness of certain video types and lead to flawed assumptions about the use of MOOC videos. Future research should take into consideration personal and environmental factors when investigating the impact of video and multimedia design on learners’ emotional engagement. Furthermore, emotional engagement in MOOCs is often captured by log files (Deng & Benckendorff, 2017) and self-reported measures such as surveys (Deng et al., 2020b). Physiological measures have the advantage of capturing emotional engagement at the activity level without having to disrupt students from learning (Henrie, Halverson, & Graham, 2015). An important research avenue is to analyse biometrics such as galvanic skin response, heart rate, and facial emotion (e.g. Ninaus et al., 2019). The results can be used to guide the design of MOOC videos that elicit positive emotions from learners.

Lastly, this study identified that providing a social space for people to ask questions and seek support contributed to positive learning experiences in MOOCs. In this study, the theme ‘questions’ is relevant to social engagement, which is used to describe learner-instructor and learner-learner interactions (Deng et al., 2020a). Past MOOC research shows that responding to other learners’ questions and contributing to course discussions are indicative of social engagement (Deng et al., 2020a), and the presence of teaching staff in discussion boards facilitates social engagement (Poquet, Jovanovic, & Dawson, 2020). The majority of MOOCs follow a cognitive-behaviourist pedagogical approach (Deng et al., 2020b), which has been criticised for limited social engagement and an excessive focus on content delivery (Agonács & Matos, 2017). As MOOC learners tend to be well-educated and highly motivated (Deng et al., 2019), some scholars claim that teaching and learning in MOOCs needs to shift from instructor-directed pedagogy to self-directed andragogy or the self-determined heutagogy. Ntourmas, Avouris, Daskalaki, and Dimitriadis (2019), for example, claimed that TAs acted more as ‘omniscient interlocutors’ (Ntourmas et al., 2019, p. 247), and teaching staff providing direct, instant, and comprehensive answers did not promote problem-based learning. Connected to this point, the boarder education literature also shows that two-way, dialogic interactions were more effective than unilateral instructor feedback for promoting high-order learning outcomes (Tan, Whipp, Gagné, & Van Quaquebeke, 2019).

This study provides empirical evidence that MOOC learners valued the answers provided by teaching staff (e.g. TAs, forum moderators) and the immediacy of such support. In other words, learners seemed to be comfortable with taking a consumptive role in forum communication and perceived the teaching staff as the primary source of knowledge and information. This observation leads to a series of important questions. Should MOOCs provide a more flexible structure to promote self-directedness in learning? If the goal is set to advance self-determined learning and achieve higher levels of learner agency, how can instructors reconfigure the teaching and learning space to achieve this goal? Kizilcec, Pérez-Sanagustín, and Maldonado (2016) have shown in their experimental study that simply embedding self-regulated learning study tips in MOOCs did not improve persistence. Moreover, most teaching staff moderate the MOOC discussion boards on a pro bono basis. Although some people ‘felt uneasy about making postings that might seem too…directive’ (Beaven, Hauck, Comas-Quinn, Lewis, & de los Arcos, 2014, p. 35) and ‘[tried] to help learners reach the solution themselves’ (Ntourmas et al., 2019, p. 245), it is not clear whether all teaching staff have the capacity (e.g. knowledge, time) to scaffold the learning process and guide a massive number of learners along a path of inquiry. Future research should establish a working set of best practices for cultivating self-directed and self-determined skills in MOOCs.

This study has made two important theoretical contributions to the literature. Firstly, this study demonstrated the importance of MOOC learners in co-creating a positive learning experience. Past learning research typically conceives desirable learning outcomes in MOOCs as achieving higher grades, persisting longer, or obtaining a certificate of accomplishment. This study argues that there are underlying differences between MOOCs and credit-bearing university courses, and learning outcomes valued in traditional HEIs (e.g. achievement, persistence) may not be the best indicators to represent MOOC learning outcomes. It is argued that perceived quality of instruction is an important alternative outcome indicator in MOOCs, and shows that the key themes contributing to positive learning experiences can be identified through an analysis of learners’ ratings and reviews. Secondly, this study identified six important themes associated with the positive learning experience in MOOCs. The identified themes are ‘learning’, ‘understanding’, ‘interesting’, ‘videos’, ‘recommend’, and ‘questions’. The study reported the characteristics of each identified theme based on the investigation of the proximity of themes, distribution of concepts within themes, and important connections. The study discussed the findings in conjunction with prior theories and pedagogical practices to provide new insights into the conceptualisation of the positive learning experience in MOOCs. A number of future research avenues have been proposed based on the discussion of research findings and the existing literature.

A number of practical recommendations are evident for MOOC designers, administrators, and policy makers. The study demonstrates that positive MOOC learning experiences are complex and multifaceted. Practitioners should take into account the prominent themes identified in this study and the characteristics of each identified theme when designing or revamping a MOOC. Based on research findings, this study presents the following propositions for promoting the learning experience in MOOCs: (1) provide realistic learning contexts and instructional conditions in MOOCs to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge that transfers more readily to real-world practices; (2) carefully design the instructional conditions so that some mental challenge and stimulation is required for learners to achieve a full understanding of the content, rather than making MOOCs too simple or effortless to complete; (3) design the course content, materials, and communications to generate interest; (4) allocate sufficient resources to create high-quality video lectures; (5) employ video lectures to elicit positive emotions from MOOC learners and simplify complex, difficult concepts; and (6) incorporate discussion boards in MOOCs and invest in human and digital resources to address learners’ queries.

Three potential limitations should be kept in mind when discussing the research findings. First, the importance of a theme is indicated by the connectedness of concepts within that theme. Some researchers may disagree about how ‘importance’ is defined in this study, and there are definitely alternative ways to conceptualise ‘importance’. It is possible that some less connected concepts and themes will also provide clues to construction of the positive learning experience in MOOCs. Future research could employ a more qualitative approach to identify other latent themes that may contribute to this topic of interest.

Second, non-English reviews and negative were excluded in this study. An analysis of non-English reviews may provide additional insight into the learning experience idiosyncratic to these learners (e.g. individuals who use non-English MOOC platforms, individuals whose primary language is not English). Future research could overcome this limitation by analysing non-English reviews to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the positive learning experience in MOOCs. While the scope of this study was focussed on positive reviews, it would also be equally interesting to conduct a similar analysis of negative reviews to identify attributes that cause dissatisfaction amongst learners.

Third, learner characteristics and environmental factors were not controlled in this study. It is possible that learners belonging to different cohorts (e.g. ethnic groups, generation cohorts) can perceive the positive learning experience differently. The control of disciplines may also provide additional insight into the design of pedagogy and assessments specifically related to MOOCs in a given discipline. It is also possible that individuals enrolled in social science MOOCs can perceive the positive learning experience differently than people studying STEM MOOCs. Future research could control these factors to provide a more nuanced understanding of the positive MOOC learning experience.