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ABSTRACT
The MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) providers promote their courses as education that builds marketable skills. However, little research examines the role of relevance in the success of MOOCs or how this relevance influences learner behaviors. This study highlights the importance of MOOC relevance by decomposing it into personal relevance and social relevance and then examining their effects on learner satisfaction. Based on Expectation-Confirmation Model and DeLone and McLean's information system success model, our proposed theoretical framework elaborates on the relationship among personal relevance, social relevance, perceived usefulness, subjective nonns, confirmation, satisfaction, and continuance intention. We analyzed survey data collected from 343 MOOC learners, finding both personal and social relevance positively associated with confirmation and satisfaction. Confirmation positively influences perceived usefulness and satisfaction, while continuance intention is enhanced by learner satisfaction and subjective norms. However, the impact of perceived usefulness on satisfaction is not significant. This study contributes to Information Systems (IS) literature by demonstrating the role of relevance in the growth and success of MOOCs. Additionally, our findings contribute to the IS education literature by highlighting the need for more personally and socially relevant curricula if traditional IS programs are to remain competitive in an era of increasing educational opportunities.
Keywords: MOOC, Personal relevance. Social relevance. Online education. User satisfaction, IS education
1. INTRODUCTION
Enrollment in massive open online courses (MOOCs), online courses aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2016), grew to 220 million learners in 2021 (Shah, 2021). MOOC popularity stems from their low cost, their wide availability, and their ability to create pathways that support lifelong learning (Pilli & Admiraal, 2017). Although learners differ in their desired learning outcomes, many are motivated to enroll in MOOCs for career development (Kizilcec & Schneider, 2015). Therefore, MOOC providers promote their courses as education that aims to build marketable skills (Rivas et al., 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic catapulted MOOC popularity to new heights during spring 2020 with Coursera enrollments increasing 607% between March 17 and April 16, 2020 over the same period in 2019, and with personal and career development courses seeing the largest enrollment increases (McCluskey, 2020). Similarly, the "quarantine special" courses that Udacity offered focused on developing job skills and saw a 44.8% increase...