The Impact of Language and Location on the Curriculum Preferences of Online Entrepreneurship Students: An Application of Google Analytics

The needs and interests of online learners can be difficult to assess. Large, self-paced, open courses attract learners from different locations, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds. It is critical that instructors and institutions understand the needs and interests of their learners so that cu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEducation sciences Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 80 - 91
Main Authors Starbird, S. Andrew, Martin, Jill M., Kalbas-Schmidt, Trish A.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2022
Subjects
Asynchronous Communication
Behavioral Objectives
Computer Software
curriculum
Curriculum Design
Distance learning
Educational Environment
Educational Needs
Educational Technology
Electronic Learning
English
Entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship
Geographic Location
language
Language Usage
Learner Engagement
Online Courses
online education
Online instruction
Preferences
Spanish
Student Interests
Student Motivation
Websites
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Summary:The needs and interests of online learners can be difficult to assess. Large, self-paced, open courses attract learners from different locations, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds. It is critical that instructors and institutions understand the needs and interests of their learners so that curriculum and pedagogy can evolve. In this paper we consider the curriculum preferences of online learners who are accessing asynchronous, self-selected, and self-paced training content related to entrepreneurship. The content is free and is offered in both English and Spanish. We utilize data from Google Analytics, a free application that records critical data about the demographics and behavior of online users, to test hypotheses about the influence of language and location on the preferences and engagement of learners. We find statistically significant differences in the interests and engagement of learners to Spanish content as opposed to our English content. Similarly, we find that location has a statistically significant impact on the curriculum interests and engagement of learners. Using this information, we can design curriculum that is more closely aligned with the interests of our learners and allocate resources to improve pedagogy.
ISSN:2227-7102
2227-7102
DOI:10.3390/educsci12020080