Older adults’ learning motivations in massive open online courses

ABSTRACT

With the popularization of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in the e-learning landscape, more and more older adults are participating in MOOC learning activities. Understanding older adults’ learning motivations in MOOCs will help MOOC developers design suitable learning systems and appropriate course content for older learners. Using a content analysis method, this study identifies six types of learning motivations of older adults in MOOCs: solving problems, acquiring knowledge, improving cognition, seeking fun, benefiting others, and social contact, among which improving cognition is unique to older adults. Based on the above classification, we found that the learning motivations among older adults vary with age and gender. The findings enrich the theories of education for older adults and of learning motivation, and can be used to improve the design of MOOCs for older adults.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Data were collected on August 6, 2018. Source URL: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/successful-ageing/6/welcome/discussion/comments.

2. The percentage in parentheses refers to the proportion of learners with certain motivation to all learners. Percentages provided add up to over 100% because more than one motivation for learning may have been mentioned by each learner.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [71771210]; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant [71502003]; and the Beijing Natural Science Foundation under Grant [9182008].