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Relationship between participants’ level of education and engagement in their completion of the Understanding Dementia Massive Open Online Course

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Education, March 2015
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Title
Relationship between participants’ level of education and engagement in their completion of the Understanding Dementia Massive Open Online Course
Published in
BMC Medical Education, March 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12909-015-0344-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Lynette R Goldberg, Erica Bell, Carolyn King, Ciaran O’Mara, Fran McInerney, Andrew Robinson, James Vickers

Abstract

The completion rates for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) generally are low (5-10%) and have been reported to favour participants with higher (typically tertiary-level) education. Despite these factors, the flexible learning offered by a MOOC has the potential to provide an accessible educational environment for a broad spectrum of participants. In this regard, the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre has developed a MOOC on dementia that is evidence-based and intended to address this emerging major global public health issue by providing educational resources to a broad range of caregivers, people with dementia, and health care professionals. The Understanding Dementia MOOC was designed specifically to appeal to, and support, adult learners with a limited educational background. The nine-week course was presented in three units. Participants passed a quiz at the end of each unit to continue through the course. A series of discussion boards facilitated peer-to-peer interactions. A separate "Ask an Expert" discussion board also was established for each unit where participants posted questions and faculty with expertise in the area responded. Almost 10,000 people from 65 countries registered; 4,409 registrants engaged in the discussion boards, and 3,624 (38%) completed the course. Participants' level of education ranged from postgraduate study to a primary (elementary) school education. Participants without a university education (vocational certificate and below) were as likely as those with a university education to complete the course (χ(2) = 2.35, df = 6, p = 0.88) and to engage in the online discussions (F[6, 3799] = 0.85, p = 0.54). Further, participants who completed the MOOC engaged in significantly more discussion board posts than participants who did not complete the course (t = 39.60, df = 4407, p <0.001). The high completion rate and level of engagement of participants across a broad spectrum of levels of education suggest that MOOCs can be successfully developed and delivered to students from diverse educational backgrounds. The high participation rate also highlights the combination of MOOC design as well as the scale of unmet need for quality dementia education.

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The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 265 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Canada 1 <1%
Switzerland 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Unknown 262 99%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 39 15%
Student > Ph. D. Student 32 12%
Researcher 29 11%
Other 22 8%
Student > Doctoral Student 21 8%
Other 73 28%
Unknown 49 18%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 42 16%
Medicine and Dentistry 34 13%
Computer Science 22 8%
Nursing and Health Professions 17 6%
Psychology 15 6%
Other 75 28%
Unknown 60 23%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 January 2016.
All research outputs
#14,220,809
of 22,797,621 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Education
#1,957
of 3,314 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#139,071
of 263,449 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Education
#39
of 60 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,797,621 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,314 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.4. This one is in the 36th percentile – i.e., 36% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 263,449 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 44th percentile – i.e., 44% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 60 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 33rd percentile – i.e., 33% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.