There is an emerging trend in higher education for the adoption of massive open online courses (MOOCs). However, despite this interest in learning at scale, there has been limited work investigating the impact MOOCs can play on student learning. In our most current studies, we adopted a novel approach, using language and discourse as a tool to explore its association with two established measures of learning: traditional academic performance and social centrality. We demonstrate how characteristics of language diagnostically reveal the performance and social position of learners as they interact in a MOOC. We use Coh-Metrix, a theoretically grounded, computational linguistic modeling tool, to explore students' forum postings, as well as interactions distributed via Twitter, blogs and Facebook, across five potent discourse dimensions. Using a Social Network Analysis (SNA) methodology, we determine learners' social centrality. Linear mixed-effect modeling is used for all other analyses to control for individual learner and text characteristics. The results indicate that learners performed significantly better when they engaged in more expository style discourse, with surface and deep level cohesive integration, abstract language, and simple syntactic structures. However, measures of social centrality revealed a different picture.

1. Factors shaping learners’
interactions in networked learning
context
Srećko Joksimović
s.joksimovic@ed.ac.uk
@s_joksimovic
Dragan Gašević
dragan.gasevic@ed.ac.uk
@dgasevic
Vitomir Kovanović
v.kovanovic@ed.ac.uk
@vkovanovic

2. C X- Open design
- Learner centered
- Use of social media
- Distributed communication
- Fixed design
- Focused on learner-content
Interaction
- Video lectures
- Peer assessment
2015-06-16 Slide 2 of 23

3. cMOOC study context
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Social capital
Slide 3 of 23

4. cMOOC study context
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Social capital
Social network
analysis
Slide 4 of 23

5. cMOOC study context
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Information exchange
Slide 5 of 23

6. cMOOC study context
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• Language and the
quality of social ties
are mutually
dependent.
Slide 6 of 23

7. xMOOC study context
2015-06-16 Slide 7 of 23

8. cMOOC study approach
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CCK11 (12 weeks)
CCK12 (12 weeks)
Week
1
Learner 1
Learner 2
Learner N
Week
2
Learner 1
Learner N
…
SNA
Degree centrality
Eigenvalue centrality
Betweenness centrality
Closeness centrality
Coh-Metrix
Narrativity
Syntactic Simplicity
Word Concreteness
Referential Cohesion
Deep Cohesion
MLM
<<analyze>>
<<measure>>
Slide 8 of 23
1755 posts
2483 posts
1473 posts
61 posts
2266 posts
624 posts

9. xMOOC study approach
2015-06-16 Slide 9 of 23
NGIx (8 weeks)
SNA
Degree centrality
Eigenvalue centrality
Betweenness centrality
Closeness centrality
<<measure>>
Learner 1
Learner 2
…
Learner N
Coh-Metrix
Narrativity
Syntactic Simplicity
Word Concreteness
Referential Cohesion
Deep Cohesion
MLM
Active learners
All learners
Grades
MLM
Active learners
All learners

10. SNA metrics
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Degree Centrality
Closeness Centrality
Betweenness Centrality
Eigenvalue Centrality
Slide 10 of 23

11. Linguistic properties
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• Narrativity
• Deep cohesion
• Referential cohesion
• Syntactic simplicity
• Word concreteness
Slide 11 of 23

12. Statistical analyses
2015-06-16 Slide 12 of 17
Dependent Independent Random
cMOOC and xMOOC cMOOC and xMOOC cMOOC
Degree centrality Narrativity Learner within a course
Eigenvalue centrality Deep Cohesion Course slope
Betweenness centrality Referential Cohesion
Closeness centrality Syntax Simplicity xMOOC
xMOOC Word Concreteness Learner
Final grade cMOOC Word count
Media
Time
Activity

13. -0.1 -0.05 0 0.05
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
Degree models
-0.1 -0.05 0 0.05 0.1
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
*
*
-0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
All learners Active learners
**
*
**
**
*
***
**
cMOOC
xMOOC

14. Betweenness models
-0.05 0 0.05 0.1
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
-0.2 0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
All learners Active learners
*
***
-0.06 -0.04 -0.02 0 0.02 0.04
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
*
*
cMOOC
xMOOC

15. Closeness models
-0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
-0.4 -0.2 0 0.2 0.4
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
All learners
Active learners
**
**
**
*
**
**
cMOOC
xMOOC
-0.03 -0.02 -0.01 0 0.01 0.02
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity

16. cMOOC Eigenvalue model
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-0.08 -0.06 -0.04 -0.02 0 0.02 0.04
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
***
Slide 16 of 23
 Low referential cohesion
 Higher eigenvalue centrality

17. 0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
Week
1
Week
2
Week
3
Week
4
Week
5
Week
6
Week
7
Week
8
Week
9
Week
10
Week
11
Week
12
cMOOC Contextual factors
2015-06-16 Slide 17 of 23
 Media
 Twitter vs. Facebook vs. Blogs
 Differ in their affordances
 Time
 Negative association?
 Activity
 More active -> more likely to grow
influence

18. xMOOC Performance models
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-0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
Slide 18 of 23
-1 -0.5 0 0.5
Syntax Simplicity
Deep Cohesion
Referential Cohesion
Word Concreteness
Narrativity
All learners Active learners
****
**
**
**
**
*
**
**

19. What do we know…?
• Contextual, as well as linguistic and discourse features of
written artefacts, are important determinants of learning in a
cMOOC environment.
• cMOOC: Course participants who tend to use more narrative and
informal style, nevertheless still manage to maintain a deeper cohesive
structure in their communication will have more ties.
• xMOOC:
– Better performance – more expository style discourse
– Higher centrality – more narrative style, with less overlap between
words and ideas
2015-06-16 Slide 19 of 23

20. So what…?
• Practice
– Effective use of language to communicate and share knowledge
– Sharing novel information, using concrete and coherently
structured language
– Traditional academic performance vs. social centrality
• Research
– Are learners able to develop all the necessary skills to learn in
distributed settings?
– Changes in linguistic features as indicators of learning progress
2015-06-16 Slide 20 of 23

21. What we are missing?
• cMOOC
– temporal dimension
– 72 undirected weighted
graphs
• xMOOC
– cross-sectional analysis
– limited set of interactions
2015-06-16 Slide 21 of 23

22. What we are missing?
L1
L2
L3
FB post - fi
TW post - ti
L4
Blog post - bi
TW post - tj
SM post - smn
post

23. What we are missing?
L2
Temporal properties:
- Linguistic and discourse features – t1
- Linguistic and discourse features – t2
- …
- Linguistic and discourse features – tn
Overall
- GPA
- Previous activities
- Demographics
2015-06-16 Slide 23 of 23

24. Further research
• (Temporal) Exponential Random Graph
Models
– Mathematical vs. Statistical model
Henry and Dietz (2011)
2015-06-16 Slide 24 of 23

25. Factors shaping learners’
interactions in networked learning
context
Srećko Joksimović
s.joksimovic@ed.ac.uk
@s_joksimovic
Dragan Gašević
dragan.gasevic@ed.ac.uk
@dgasevic
Vitomir Kovanović
v.kovanovic@ed.ac.uk
@vkovanovic

26. References
• Joksimović, S., Dowell, N. M., Skrypnyk, O., Kovanović, V., Gašević, D., Dawson, S., Graesser,
A.C. - Exploring the Development of Social Capital in cMOOC through Language and
Discourse, Journal of Educational Data Mining, 2015 (submitted).
• Dowell, N. M., Skrypnyk, O., Joksimović, S., Graesser, A. C., Dawson, S., Gašević, D., Hennis, T.
A., de Vries, P., Kovanović, V. – Modeling Learners’ Social Centrality and Performance through
Language and Discourse, The 8th International Conference on Educational Data Mining,
Madrid, Spain, 26-29 June, 2015 (accepted).
• Henry, A. D., Dietz, T. - Information, networks, and the complexity of trust in commons
governance. International Journal of the Commons, [S.l.], v. 5, n. 2, p. 188-212, sep. 2011.
ISSN 1875-0281. Available at:
<http://www.thecommonsjournal.org/index.php/ijc/article/view/312/231>. Date accessed:
17 May. 2015.