Thirteenth International Conference on e-Learning & Innovative Pedagogies

Abstract

The rise of the Open Educational Resources movement during the last two decades paved the way for online education to become more equally accessible, and widened the “democratic participation” in distance education. This paper examines the factors influencing the participation of MOOC learners in these courses. More specifically, it focuses on demographic, socio-economic and educational aspects of MOOC learners. The data are derived through a systematic literature review related to MOOC participants and their characteristics of the years 2009-2019. A literature search strategy was employed in order to identify as many items as possible, resulting in fifty-six papers. This process included the formulation of search terms and search limitations, a preliminary research and the main literature research phase in eight academic databases using a flow diagram. The analysis of the results showcases that participation inequalities in MOOCs persist. Overall, women participate less in science and programming courses than men. Most of MOOC users are already employed and attend for further training. Users from wealthier neighborhoods with higher socio-economic status were more likely to attend a MOOC, while users with more educated parents are twice as likely to participate than the other students. New research should be directed to the instructional design of these courses. If MOOCs want to confirm their declaration as “open for all,” research should move forward to “listen” to the complex educational needs of non-casual learning cohorts and create equal opportunities for those underprivileged who fall back.