Influence of MOOC learners discussion forum social interactions on online reviews of MOOC

On the basis of fully understanding personal needs and environmental information, self-determination theory emphasizes self-motivation in the motivation process, meaning that individuals should make free choices regarding their actions. According to the theory of self-determination, all individuals have three basic psychological needs, i.e., autonomy, relevance, and ability, regardless of gender, age, and cultural differences (Khan et al. 2018).

Autonomy refers to the need for freedom or the perceptual choice of individual behavior. Individuals can choose to participate or not participate in an activity, and they can decide what to do within that activity. Cognitive evaluation theory believes that intrinsic motivation is enhanced when a person is given the opportunity to choose, feel, or decide. Relevance refers to the need for individuals to be associated with others including family members, friends, teachers, classmates, etc., to create a sense of security.

Individuals need to have a sense of challenge, which enables them to master their own pursuits and engage in an activity efficiently. Learning ability is a key motivation factor for MOOC learners to participate in MOOC learning. MOOC discussion forums provide learners with the ability to communicate and interact. MOOC online reviews provide learners with an independent environment for leaving an online review. Therefore, the learning ability of MOOC learners provides a motivational basis for MOOC learners to participate in discussion forums and leave online reviews. MOOC learners with faster learning progress are more likely to participate in MOOC discussion forums, improve communication relevance, and advance the autonomy of MOOC online reviews.

Social interaction refers to social activities in which people use certain methods or tools to transmit information and exchange ideologies to achieve a certain goal. Social interaction in MOOC discussion forums refers to the idea that MOOC learners post and reply to course-related exchanges. In MOOC discussion forums, MOOC instructors can post a topic for discussion and communication between MOOC learners and MOOC learners can reply, ask questions, and interact with others.

A lack of social interaction is one of the reasons that online learners feel lonely, which has a negative impact on online learning (Moreno-Marcos et al. 2019). If online learners persist in participating in the course discussion forum, the functions of support and companionship in the course discussion forum will be enhanced (Aldowah et al. 2019). Social learning and peer learning are important factors in promoting online learner participation (Swinnerton et al. 2017). Only when MOOC learners have a certain sense of belonging in MOOC learning, will they participate more actively in MOOC learning.

Social interaction in MOOC discussion forums is an important way for MOOC learners to exchange and share information, and it is also a key factor that affects the quality of MOOC learning. Social interaction has a strong impact on individuals’ psychological needs and thus affects learners’ involvement (Wise and Cui 2018). Collaborative learning is valuable and positively influences learning adherence and learning attitudes (Khan et al. 2018). Social interaction is a very important part of MOOC learning input, and the greater the MOOC learning input, the longer the MOOC learner will persist in their education (Hmedna et al. 2019). The status and quality of social interactions in MOOC discussion forums are explored by empirical study (Almatrafi and Johri 2019). The interaction level in MOOC discussion forums is comprehensively analyzed by comparing discussion forum posts, MOOC categories, MOOC teaching modes, MOOC learning support, and MOOC evaluation methods (Deng et al. 2019). The learners who participate in MOOC discussion forums are divided into post publishers and post reviewers to construct an interaction network, and then, social network analysis is used to analyze the structure characteristics of the network (Yang et al. 2017). The participation and activity of learners in MOOC discussion forums are studied according to MOOC learners’ behavior (Moore et al. 2019), including the continuous learning time, number of posts, number of replies, etc.

Some studies have found that MOOC learners who participate in MOOC discussion forum posts have a relatively higher completion rate. Additionally, people who post weekly are less likely to drop out of Coursera (Sukaina 2016). Based on Coursera data provided by the University of Edinburgh in 2013 and 2014, learners who insisted on MOOC learning and obtained certificates are more likely to post frequently or browse posts (Woodgate et al. 2015). Although only 3% of MOOC learners participated in discussion forums, 52% of people who obtained a certificate participated in a forum more frequently (Sanchez-Gordon and Lujan-Mora 2016).

The MOOC platform provides a discussion forum for MOOC learners to communicate with and learn from others (Moore et al. 2019). Meanwhile, the MOOC platform provides MOOC learners with the MOOC online review function for course rating and evaluation. Similar to online shopping, MOOC online reviews help others choose courses (Ghasemaghaei et al. 2018). Therefore, it is necessary to combine the MOOC discussion forum with MOOC online reviews to explore the impact of MOOC discussion forum participation on MOOC online reviews. However, the current research is lacking in this regard. The self-determination theory can be used to understand the MOOC learning progress and social interaction in the MOOC discussion forum, thus stimulating motivation for MOOC online review autonomy.

According to self-determination theory, this study takes MOOC learning progress as learning ability, social interaction in MOOC discussion forum as learning interactivity, and MOOC online reviews as reviewing autonomy, to study the roles of ability, relevance and autonomy for MOOC learners.

Based on the above hypotheses, a research model based on self-determination theory is constructed in Fig. 1. As shown in Fig. 1, MOOC learning progress has a direct impact on MOOC online reviews and an indirect influence on MOOC online reviews through social interactions in discussion forums, as well.

As one of the world’s largest online learning platforms, Coursera was founded in 2012 by two computer science professors at Stanford University. Coursera is distinguished from other online platforms by its in-depth cooperation with higher education institutions around the world, providing a wide range of related curriculum resources in popular majors, such as computer science, data science, information technology, mathematics, language learning, arts and humanities, and business. These courses with tests and assignments are taught by professors from the world’s most prestigious institutions. Upon MOOC completion, MOOC learners will receive a completion certificate.

This paper selects Coursera as the empirical research object based on the following two reasons.

First, by 2019, Coursera announced that it has partnered with more than 150 universities and that 40 million people have studied through the Coursera platform. Learners can choose from 3200 courses, 310 special courses (a series of related courses to obtain a certificate), and 14 undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

Second, Coursera provides MOOC discussion forums for learners to have discussions based on MOOC learning. Moreover, Coursera provides MOOC online review functions for MOOC learners to rate and review their courses online.

Therefore, Coursera provides ample research samples, and related research data, such as MOOC learning progress, social interaction behavior, online review and rating, can be obtained from Coursera. This study was designed to capture relevant research data from the “Machine Learning” course taught by Professor Wu Enda from Stanford University during the period from August 2016 to December 2019. “Machine Learning” is the most popular course on Coursera. There is a large number of MOOC learners. MOOC discussion forums and MOOC online reviews have accumulated a large amount of data for research. Finally, by deleting invalid data and removing blank data, data from 4376 learners who participated in both MOOC discussion forums and MOOC online reviews was acquired. Therefore, this article conducts research on 4376 anonymized learners.

The descriptive statistics of the variables is shown in Table 1.

The descriptive statistics of the MOOC online review length (mean = 158.71, standard deviation = 206.817) indicates that the MOOC online review length is usually long, but there is a large difference.

The descriptive statistics of MOOC learning progress (mean = 77.31, standard deviation = 20.577) indicates that MOOC learners exhibit a higher degree of completion, but there are some differences.

The descriptive statistics of the total number of discussion forum posts (mean = 5.62, standard deviation = 9.261), the number of browse (mean = 87.41, standard deviation = 167.694), the number of follow (mean = 3.84, standard deviation = 6.429) and the number of like (mean = 1.14, standard deviation = 4.113) indicate little difference in social interaction in MOOC discussion forums.

The descriptive statistics of the course online rating (mean = 4.9, standard deviation = 0.368) and online review sentiment (mean = 2.13, standard deviation = 2.431) indicate that the MOOC has high online ratings with positive sentiment and that there is little difference.

To analyze whether the variables are independent, the Pearson correlation coefficient between each variable is calculated. The larger the absolute value of the Pearson correlation coefficient between two variables, the stronger the correlation; on the other hand, the closer the correlation coefficient value to 0, the weaker the correlation. The coefficients between the variables in this study are all less than 0.6, so the variables are independent of each other and multiple regression studies can be performed.

Based on the research hypotheses H2a and H2b proposed above, with the number of browse (Pv) as the dependent variable and the MOOC learning progress (Pg) and the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners (Pn) as independent variables, a multiple regression model (Model 1) is constructed as Eq.1.

Based on the research hypotheses H4a and H4b proposed above, with the number of like (Pl) as the dependent variable and the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners (Pn) and the number of browse (Pv) as independent variables, a multiple regression model (Model 2) is constructed as Eq. 2.

Based on the research hypotheses H3a, H3b and H3c proposed above, with the number of follow (Pf) as the dependent variable and the number of browse (Pv), the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners (Pn) and the number of like (Pl) as independent variables, a multiple regression model (Model 3) is constructed as Eq3.

Based on the research hypotheses H1a, H1b, H1c, H1d, H1e and H1f proposed above, with the length of MOOC online review text (Cl) as the dependent variable and MOOC learning progress (Pg), the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learner (Pn), the number of browse (Pv), the number of follow (Pf), MOOC online rating (Cr) and online review sentiment (Cs) as independent variables, a multiple regression model (Model 4) is constructed as Eq. 4.

According to the above four regression models, multiple linear regression analysis was performed using SPSS22.0. All the variables in the four models have 0 < VIF < 10 and tolerance>0.1. The regression results are shown in Table 2. Therefore, there is no multi-collinearity problem for the variables of the multiple regression model constructed in this study (Salmeron et al. 2018).

Based on the regression results of Model 1 presented in Table 2, MOOC learning progress (Pg) and the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners (Pn) have significant positive effect on the number of browse (Pv) (β_Rd = 0.962, p < 0.001; β_Rl = 0.915, p < 0.001).Therefore, hypotheses H2a and H2b are supported.

Based on the regression results of Model 2 presented in Table 2, the number of browse (Pv) has a significant negative influence on the number of like (Pl) (β_Pv =  − 0.003, p < 0.001). Therefore, hypothesis H4a is not supported. Additionally, the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners (Pn) has a significant positive effect on the number of like (Pl)(β_Pn = 0.306, p < 0.001). Therefore, hypothesis H4b is supported.

Based on the regression results of Model 3 presented in Table 2, the number of browse (Pv), the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners (Pn), and the number of like (Pl) have significant positive effects on the number of follow (Pf)(β_Pv = 0.014, p < 0.001; β_Pn = 0.334, p < 0.001; β_Pl = 0.096, p < 0.001). Therefore, hypotheses H3a, H3b and H3c are supported.

Based on the regression results of Model 4 presented in Table 2, MOOC learning progress (Pg), the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners (Pn), the number of follow (Pf), and MOOC online review sentiment (Cs) have significantly positive effects on the length of MOOC online review text (β_Pg = 0.336, p < 0.001; β_Pn = 0.725, p < 0.05; β_Pf = 1.468, p < 0.001; β_Cs = 3.454, p < 0.001). Therefore, hypotheses H1a, H1b, H1d and H1f are supported. MOOC online ratings (Cr) have a significantly negative effect on the length of MOOC online review text (Cl)(β_Cr =  − 5.693, p < 0.001). Therefore, hypothesis H1e is supported. The number of browse (Pv) has a significantly negative effect on the length of MOOC online review text (Cl)(β_Pv =  − 0.037, p < 0.05). Therefore, hypothesis H1c is not supported.

Summarizing the above results of hypotheses tests, as shown in Tables 3, 11 of the 13 research hypotheses are supported.

First, based on the theory of self-determination, this study provides a theoretical basis that the online review autonomy of MOOC learners is affected by their learning abilities and social interaction within MOOC learner discussion forums.

Second, most of the existing literature studies MOOC learner behavioral characteristics in MOOC discussion forums and MOOC online reviews separately. Research on the integration of MOOC discussion forums and MOOC online reviews is relatively lacking. Therefore, this study combines the social interactions in MOOC discussion forums and MOOC online reviews to explore the influencing factors of the length of MOOC online review text to study in depth the learning behavior of MOOC learners.

Third, there is little research on the influencing factors of the length of MOOC online review text. Therefore, taking the length of MOOC online review text as the dependent variable and MOOC learning progress, the number of discussion forum posts by MOOC learners, the number of browse, the number of follow and the number of like as independent variables, multiple regression analysis is used to research the influencing factors of the length of MOOC online review text.