Planning prompts increase payment for certificates in MOOCs by 40%¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r? · q3
Currency · no dated study recorded · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In the same natural field experiment, students who received open-ended planning prompts paid for certificates at a 40% higher rate than students who did not. → Yeomans 2017

Evidence¶

Yeomans 2017¶

Yeomans, Michael and Reich, Justin. 2017. "Planning Prompts Increase and Forecast Course Completion in Massive Open Online Courses." Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3027385.3027416

q3 · i? · causal · r?

Outcome measure from the natural field experiment in three HarvardX courses: the planning-prompt treatment raised "payment for certificates by 40%". The article prints a percentage change but no standardized effect size, so no magnitude is coded.

"These prompts increased course completion by 29%, and payment for certificates by 40%."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The planning-prompt effect on MOOC completion is largest for students enrolled in traditional schools — related
• Open-ended planning prompts at the start of a MOOC increase course completion by 29% — related
• The content of MOOC students' plans forecasts completion, with time-focused plans predicting lower completion — related
• Goal setting and strategic planning positively predict attainment of personal course goals in MOOCs — related
• Help seeking negatively predicts goal attainment in MOOCs — related