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Past research suggests that many individuals take Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for employment-related reasons. It is unclear, however, how learners leverage MOOCs for employment and how effectively these platforms support employability. To explore this further, we surveyed 441 learners and interviewed 22 learners motivated to take MOOCs for reasons related to financial limitations and/or reasons related to employment. Using the three dimensions of employability as a framework-human and social capital, career identity, and personal adaptability-we find that while most of our participants were optimistic about the potential for MOOCs to improve their employability, there was very limited tangible evidence of employment mobility from taking MOOCs. Though MOOCs support human capital, there are opportunities to further support social capital, career identity, and personal adaptability. We contribute a deeper understanding of learners who use MOOCs for employment and provide concrete design implications for MOOC platforms to better support employability in the future. We found very few low SES learners using MOOCs for reasons of employment and identify opportunities for MOOCs to reach and support these learners.
Dillahunt et al. (Sat,) studied this question.