Beyond the Dichotomy: Quantifying the Effect of Achievement Emotions on Students' Retention in MOOC Forums

• In Event: 18.046 - Can We Debug It? Perceptions and Inquiry

Abstract

This study intends to quantify the effect of achievement emotions on students’ survival in MOOC forums. Informed by the control-value theory of achievement emotions, this research goes beyond the dichotomy of positive or negative emotions to understand the role of emotions in MOOC students’ experiences. Specifically, we built an accurate machine learning model to automatically detect the achievement emotions in the forum posts. Then survival analysis was used to quantify the influence of achievement emotions on student dropout. The results show a different influencing mechanism for expressed and exposed achievement emotions on student survival in the MOOC course. Implications for intervention design to improve student retention in MOOCs will be discussed in the presentation.

Authors

• Hengtao Tang, The Pennsylvania State University

• bo pei

• Wanli Xing, Texas Tech University