Crues, R. Wes, et al. "How do gender, learning goals, and forum participation predict persistence in a computer science MOOC?." ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 18.4 (2018): 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3152892

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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To help with analysis, Crues et. al defined 5 exclusive clusters based on student interests:
- *Computer Science Student* - Students that expressed specific interest in the field of Computer Science.
- *Understanding and Learning* - Students that expressed interest in the secondary functionality of the course: the ability to create apps for an Android device.
- *Programming is Cool* - Students that expressed general interest and fascination in programming.
- *Career and Entrepreneurial Activities* - Students that saw the course as a stepping stone for their career development or for entrepreneurship.
- *Other* - Students that didn't fit into the previous four clusters.

Gender Differences in MOOC participation - Reason Clusters

When considering both genders:
- Students that fell under the computer-science-student cluster were 1.41 times more likely to view the forums.
- Students that fell under the career-and-entrepreneurial cluster were 1.26 times more likely to view the forums.

When looking at the genders individually:
- Female students in the computer-science-student cluster were 2.21 more likely to view the forums, when compared to female students in other clusters.
- Male students in the career-entrepreneurial-activities cluster were 1.28 more likely to view the forums, when compared to male students in other clusters.

More specifically, the mentioned clusters were the only clusters to have significant results, specific to both genders.

Gender Differences in MOOC participation - Reasons for enrolling

With persistence defined as any measurable activity performed within the MOOC (e.g viewing the forums, taking a quiz), and persistence levels being defined as continued interaction with the platform, the following was observed:
- Male students were 1.59 times more likely have "high persistence" over "medium persistence" than female students.
- Male students were 1.59 times more likely have "medium persistence" over "low persistence" than female students.
- Female students who posted on the forums were 4.64 times more likely to have "high persistence".
- Male students who posted on the forums were 6.39 times more likely to have "high persistence".
- Female students who viewed the forums were 2.15 times more likely to have "high persistence".
- Male students who viewed the forums were 2.53 times more likely to have "high persistence".

Gender Differences in MOOC participation - Participation

(Direct excerpt)
For a more thorough analysis, we again computed Pearson standardized residuals for Table 4. We found the residuals were greater than four for men and women in both the views and posts levels of participation. That is, the number of women and men we expected to view or post in the forum when using the χ2 test of independence was quite different from the number of men and women we observed who viewed or posted in the forum. Specifically, for women, we observed more women viewing the forum than we expected, but less women posted in the forum. The reverse was true for men: More men than expected posted to the forum, but less men than expected viewed
the forum.

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