Combating Procrastination on Massive Online Open Courses via Optimal Calls to Action

Massive online open courses (MOOCs) are a booming phenomenon in the digital era. However, the online nature of educational delivery via MOOCs creates every opportunity for digital distraction and procrastination, resulting in difficulties for students and instructors. According to a new study in Information Systems Research, the authors Ni Huang (University of Houston), Jiayin Zhang (Tsinghua University), Gordon Burtch (University of Minnesota), Xitong Li (HEC Paris), and Peiyu Chen (Arizona State University) report a randomized field experiment on a large MOOC platform to examine several calls to action (CTAs) pertaining to the completion and submission of course assignments with an eye toward combating student procrastination on MOOCs. Their results show that descriptive norms (i.e., informing the completion rates of the assignments) lead to higher probabilities of assignment completion and a shorter time to completion. In contrast, a deadline reminder in the form of a planning prompt (i.e., informing the target deadline for assignment submission and the importance of planning ahead) has a surprisingly counterproductive effect, in particular, if students’ active course load is low. One possible explanation is that the students with low course loads may perceive the deadline to be distant, which reduces their sense of urgency and leads to complacency.