The impact of cMOOC learners' interaction on content production

As a representative practice of the theory of connectivism, cMOOCs emphasize learners' content-based connective learning. Effectively promoting learners' content production is the focus of cMOOC research and practice. This study explores whether and how learners' online interactions affect the content production of courses. Based on 45166 real-time behavioural data points of learners, this study measures the interaction level and content production degree of each learner and analyses the influence of interaction on content production. The results show that the number of low-level interactions is higher than that of high-level interactions, and content production increases with the development of the curriculum. Low-level active interactions of cMOOC learners have no significant impact on content production, while high-level active interactions have a significant positive impact on content production, and attention in low-level passive interactions has a significant positive impact on content production. However, simple comments in low-level passive interactions and complex comments in high-level passive interactions have a significant negative impact on content production in a certain course. The results of this study further develop the understanding of interaction in the learning theory of connectivism, and we hope that this study can provide support for the interaction design of cMOOCs.