Communicability problems on MOOCs: a study around metacommunication

The MOOCs emerged as instruments for the democratization of education through the provision of free online courses. However, MOOCs have a high dropout rate for their students. In this sense, this paper aims to investigate whether problems in the quality of interaction (human-computer) inherent to communicability are related to the general causes of abandonment in MOOCs. In order to reach this objective, the Semiotic Inspection Method was applied in Coursera and EDx MOOCs platforms. From the results, it was inferred that communicability problems are associated with some of the general causes that lead to the abandonment or the withdrawal of students in MOOC.