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Multidimensional analysis of creative coding MOOC forums: a methodological discussion

The emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in higher education has led to new variations in the social and educational interactions that students have with their peers and teachers. In this paper, we focus on methodological issues and discuss different options for analysis frameworks for forum posts in MOOCs. The ultimate aim of our ongoing research is to understand how factors relating to interactions and discussions may lead to better learning outcomes in programming courses. We performed a multidimensional analysis using existing frameworks for a small data set extracted from a larger data pool from a Creative Coding MOOC. Based on this pilot study, we discuss how different analysis approaches contribute to gaining a holistic understanding of online interactions. We found the need to redefine existing frameworks for the specific analysis of MOOC discussions and in particular, for computer science focused discussions. We conclude by highlighting some of the themes and challenges we are expecting in our future work, such as, how to automate data analysis of MOOC discussions.