Who You Are or What You Do: Comparing the Predictive Power of Demographics vs. Activity Patterns in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Demographics factors have been used successfully as predictors of student success in traditional higher education systems, but their relationship to achievement in MOOC environments has been largely untested. In this work we explore the predictive power of user demographics compared to learner interaction trace data generated by students in two MOOCs. We show that demographic information offers minimal predictive power compared to activity models, even when compared to models created very early on in the course before substantial interaction data has accrued.