Participants’ engagement in and perceptions of English language MOOCs

This chapter draws attention to Language Massive Open Online Courses (LMOOC) designers might be able to anticipate possible participant behaviour or connector types and other engagements that may occur, accounting for various participants' perceived learning and assessment strategies within networked learning. A mixed-methods approach was used, including an analysis of discussion forum activity, online surveys, and clickstream data. These were used to analyse how participants create, define, and experience their roles in LMOOCs. The chapter reveals that participants positioned themselves within the discussion forums in various ways to connect and engage in the course. Four main themes emerged: influential connector, moderate connector, peripheral/distant connector, and dormant connector. While formal tasks can be established for peripheral, dormant, and silent connectors, the design should recognize that some participants will look for ways to cross boundaries and connect with other participants in an LMOOC to adapt to their language-learning goals.