Education: An Analysis from the Perspective of Access to Technology
Valéria F. Moura1(&), Cesar A. Souza1, JoséD. Oliveira Neto2, and Adriana B.N. Viana1
1 University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil {valeria.feitosa.vv,calesou,backx}@usp.br
2 University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil dutra@usp.br
Abstract. MOOCs can be considered thefifth generation of distance education and can potentially provide access to quality education to students with disad- vantaged background in developing countries. However, ensuring that MOOCs provide access to education to these students involves ensuring access to the necessary ICT infrastructure. The question is then whether the access to tech- nology is truly democratic, especially in those countries. The aim of this study is then to assess the potential for democratization of quality education provided by MOOCs, considering the perspective of access to technology. To reach this objective, data obtained from 4.784 students from 27 universities in 9 Southern Hemisphere countries were analyzed. Results show that the potential for democratization of education provided by the MOOCs is limited by access barriers to technology, so that to fully realize their potential, governmental actions are necessary to democratize access to technology and promote the reduction of the digital skill gap.
Keywords: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Higher educationDigital divide
ICT access policies1 Introduction
The 21st century has been marked by a great volume of technologies and changes that create a great demand for quality in higher education. Distance education and online learning are largely mentioned as options for meeting this demand, especially Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), presented as a revolution for e-learning [1].
MOOCs can be considered as thefifth generation of distance education and have the potential to reach and assist students with disadvantaged background and in developing countries, providing access to good education for those who would not have it any other way [2]. However, ensuring that MOOCs provide access to satisfactory education for these students involves ensuring access to the necessary IT infrastructure. Without recognizing these fundamental economic and technological disparities, it is not possible to reach the population that most needs access to education [3]. Therefore, we may identify MOOCs as a promise to democratize education by using technology. But, on the other hand, the question is whether the access to technology is truly democratic. The
©Springer International Publishing AG 2017
M. Themistocleous and V. Morabito (Eds.): EMCIS 2017, LNBIP 299, pp. 139–153, 2017.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-65930-5_12
objective of this study is to assess the potential for democratization of quality education provided by MOOCs. In order to reach the proposed objective, this article analyzes data obtained from 4.784 university students from 27 higher education institutions in 9 countries of the Southern Hemisphere (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, India, Indonesia and Malaysia) through the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project, which aims to improve understanding on the use and impact of Open Educational Resources (OER) to improve educational policy, practice and research in developing countries. Thus, this initiative seeks to provide evidence-based research from several countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia [4].
The article is structured as follows: initially we present a contextualization of MOOCS, then we show the benefits and barriers related to MOOCs, mainly regarding technological barriers, later we present the methodology followed by the results of the study, and we end this article with thefinal considerations.
2 MOOCs De fi nition and Contextualization
Thefirst Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) was conducted in 2008 by George Siemens and Stephen Downes [5]. MOOCs are characterized by the absence of formal requirements for enrollment and free participation, by the content being delivered entirely online in an asynchronous manner, by not requiring a link with universities and the lack of penalty for evasion [6]. By definition, MOOCs are offered in virtual environments, with online registration and use of videos, blogs, etc. [7], and may or may not be linked to universities. The “M” refers to “Massive”, which means that thousands of people can simultaneously take courses [8]. This is the characteristic that differentiates MOOCs from other e-learning experiences, since it relates to the capacity and size of the network to generate new knowledge, thus reflecting participatory learning, respecting the diversity of the large number of participants [9]. Thefirst“O” refers to“open”, which means that participation in courses is not restricted by geo- graphical location, age orfinancial resources. This aspect may include open technol- ogy, open software, open content, open evaluation process, open registration, and open educational resources [5]. The second “O”means“online,”meaning that MOOCs are exclusively Internet-based courses. Finally,“C”refers to“Courses”.
In general, there are two formats of MOOCs [10]: cMOOCs and xMOOCs, which have been widely adopted in the literature. The cMOOCs have a connectivist nature and are aligned with the principle of open education [11], they focus on the creation and generation of knowledge, emphasize connected and collaborative learning [12] and share the notion of free worldwide participation in a non-credit course [13]. On the other hand, xMOOCs follow a more traditional approach to learning through video conferences, short questionnaires and peer evaluations [13], focusing on knowledge duplication [12] and being more structured [8]. Despite this division, we may observe that MOOCs tend to be closer to one of the ends of this spectrum, but incorporate elements of both models [8].
Massive nature is the aspect that most differentiates MOOCs from other online learning experiences [14]. Scalability combined with openness enables MOOCs to
increase accessibility to higher education [8, 12], democratizing education [15] and expanding the dissemination of knowledge [12] and the chances of creating enriching connections with people throughout the world. In addition, they provide a large amount of data, allowing a better understanding of students’behavior to improve their courses [16].
MOOCs are an innovation for higher education as they offer a fundamentally innovative way of learning [8,12], encouraging universities to rethink the curriculum development process for more open and flexible educational models [14], enabling lifelong autonomous learning. In this context, MOOCs bring the need to redefine concepts to describe and understand user behavior while reaching a new audience and improving the quality of education [17].
3 Access to Technology: A Challenge to Be Overcome to Enhance the Potential of MOOCs
Despite the many benefits of MOOCs, we may observe that the phenomenon has experienced a fast cycle of hype and disappointment. Meisenhelder [3], for example, has a very critical position in relation to these courses, stating that they do not meet two basic principles to be truly transformative: they do not expand access to low-income students who are disproportionately excluded from the higher education system and they do not provide education with a greater emphasis on the learning needs of the individual. In fact, the main criticisms identified in the literature relate to high dropout rates [14, 18], and the limited impact on the access to education by disadvantaged groups [8, 18], factors that conspicuously reduce the potential of democratization of higher education proposed by MOOCs.
In developing countries, ensuring access to quality education through MOOCs for the population necessarily involves ensuring the access to the needed hardware and IT infrastructure. It is not possible to reach the population that most needs access to education without recognizing these economic and technological disparities [3].
Literature on distance learning has indicated the importance of adapting technology for high quality learning, suggesting that the technological tool should not be reduced to just putting courses online, and so it should contemplate a number of features that allow access to a large number of users, technologies focused on users and their needs, wireless technologies, Web 2.0 and video, tools that support synchronous and asyn- chronous communication, and tools for access to information and social networking [2]. Fortunately, most of these technologies and learning management tools are being integrated into higher education. MOOC platforms such as Coursera, Udacity, and EdX are making online environments more interactive, integrating videos, gamification systems and online tests [2].
However, these are not the only factors to be considered. We must also consider that there are several barriers related to Internet and hardware access and digital skills [19,20], which reduce the potential for using MOOCs. In developing countries, despite the availability of technologies in urban areas, rural and poor populations continue to be deprived of this infrastructure and the literature has consistently considered the connection to broadband Internet as the main difficulty in using open educational resources in these regions [21,22]. Even if the infrastructure is somehow present, the
operational cost may mean that the less privileged groups do not have access to the Internet, either because of the difficulty to pay for high-speed Internet or to acquire the necessary equipment for access [23]. In fact, Internet access is not universalized and Internet penetration is 66.7% in South America, 45.2% in Asia and only 27.7% in Africa, [24] a situation that minimizes the potential of MOOCs to reach the population that most needs access to quality education.
When evaluated considering hardware access, MOOCs also have some barriers, since most participants do not have differences in their profiles only, but also in access devices, requiring the courses to be developed with technologies that adapt to different forms of access [12]. In addition, Amemado [2] argues that technology needs to be user-dominated to be fully utilized and that technology-savvy people are most likely to benefit from participating in MOOCs. None of these factors suggests that MOOCs cannot be widely disseminated beyond the limits of current university practice, but they entail serious additional costs.
4 Methodology
This study is characterized as quantitative and descriptive, and the data used here come from a survey that composes a research project developed for the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) initiative, led by the University of Cape Town in South Africa and sponsored by the Canadian International Development Research Center (IDRC). The ROER4D project aims to improve the understanding of the use and impact of OERs to improve educational policy, practice and research in devel- oping countries in order to ensure that educational policy development initiatives pro- posed by philanthropic foundations and governments are effectively achieving the expected results, that is, enabling accessible education in the Southern Hemisphere through the development of affordable, socially acceptable and high quality educational resources [4].
The ROER4D initiative seeks to provide evidence-based research from several countries in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South/Southeast Asia. Thus, all data from this survey come from 9 countries in these regions: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. Next, we present infor- mation related to the selection of regions for data collection, definition of sampling, and elaboration of the instrument for data collection, survey and analysis.
The survey methodology was chosen for the ROER4D project as the most adequate way to collect, compare and explore hypotheses related to quantitative indicators related to OER and MOOCs use in the selected countries. Higher education professors and students were chosen as the target population, as this public is most acquainted in using and have easier access to the researched technologies.
4.1 Unit of Analysis and Sampling
The unit of analysis is composed of university students from 27 higher education insti- tutions in the countries surveyed. The distribution of institutions by country is shown in Table1. The selection of individuals was performed using the method of random
sampling, avoiding bias in the selection, as this method enables equal participation opportunity for all individuals [25]. To identify the necessary sample, 30 courses were selected in the semester of the collection through a random selection for each country.
Next, teachers of these courses were approached in order to identify 10 teachers with courses with more than 30 students who were interested in participating in the research.
Finally, 20 students from each class were randomly selected to answer the survey.
4.2 Data Collection Instrument
To elaborate the questionnaire for the survey, a comprehensive review of literature was carried out, as well as discussions with specialists in OER. Definitions of the constructs were centered on the factors that influence the adoption of OER and resulted in the identification of 71 variables. To evaluate content and face validity, 34 OER researchers (of whom 76% had six or more years of research and educational
Table 1. Participant universities by country Country University
Brazil Claretiano
Universidade de São Paulo
Chile Instituto de Estudios Bancarios Guillermo Subercas Universidad de Tarapacá
Colombia Universidad Santo Tomás
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Ghana Catholic Institute of Business and Technology Kwame Nkurumah University of Science and Tech.
The University of Ghana University of Cape Coast India Gauhati University
University of Delhi Indonesia Universitas Terbuka
University of Mercu Buana University of Nasional University of Pancasila Kenya Great Lakes University
Jomokenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology Maseno University
Tangaza University College Malaysia Disted college
KDU college
University of Malaysia Wawasan Open University South Africa The University of Cape Town
Unisa
University of Pretoria
experience) were invited to evaluate the impact of each of the variables identified in the adoption of open educational resources (defined as“use”and/or“creation”of OERs) by responding to a questionnaire with 62 questions. Following this process, the questionnaire was simplified to a set of 25 questions.
To identify potential problems with data collection, a pilot questionnaire was applied to a sample of 63 English-speaking students and professors, 8 Portuguese- speaking students and professors, and 3 Spanish-speaking students and professors from all the institutions that composed the sample of the ROER4D research project. The pilot questionnaire allowed us to identify the need to include the description of the OER concept in the questionnaire, and several questions were revised to use only the term“educational resource”in order to eliminate hypothetical responses, since many respondents would have theirfirst contact with the term“open educational resource” during the research. To test the updated version of the questionnaire, a second pilot test (in English and Spanish) was carried out with 34 teachers and 28 students from the sample of higher education institutions to be researched, generating small revisions and resulting in thefinal version.
4.3 Data Collection and Analysis
Data collection was carried out through a SurveyMonkey link sent to the email of the individuals selected for the survey. In cases where the students did not have access to the Internet, printed forms were delivered to respondents. The 25 questions were distributed in 3 dimensions: individual characteristics, which included, for example, questions such as age, gender, access to information technology and English proficiency; use of edu- cational resources, which addresses matters that identify which educational resources are used, elaborated, modified and shared; and Open educational resources, which addresses matters that assess the specific perception of who uses OER. Considering the scope of this paper, there were 13 variables, as shown in Table2.
Table 2. Research variables
Code Variable Type
X1 Gender Nominal
X2 Country Nominal
X3 Digital skills Ordinal
X4 Internet access location Nominal
X5 Internet access device Nominal
X6Cost Satisfaction with Internet cost Ordinal
X6Speed Satisfaction with Internet speed Ordinal
X6Stability Satisfaction with Internet stability Ordinal Y Creation, use, modification and/or sharing of a MOOC Nominal
Y1 Creation of a MOOC (Y/N) Binary
Y2 Use of a MOOC (Y/N) Binary
Y3 Modification of a MOOC (Y/N) Binary
Y4 Sharing of a MOOC (Y/N) Binary
Data were analyzed using SPSS software (v. 18), using descriptive statistics technique and analysis of significance indexes of the results through Chi-square test, using 5% significance level, an adequate technique for the types of variables as shown in Fig.2 [25]. For the analyzes, variables Y, Y1, Y2, Y3, and Y4 were considered dependent and variables X1, X2, X3, X4 and X5 were considered explanatory variables.
5 Findings and Discussion
From the selected sample, a return of 4,784 respondents was obtained, distributed among the nine countries surveyed, as presented in Table3.
Nearly half of the respondents (48.8%) stated that they have already created, used, modified or shared a MOOC. When we evaluate each of the actions carried out with MOOC, it is possible to identify that most respondents used them (26.2%) and mod- ified them (14.9%). It is also possible to observe that the Asian countries (India, Indonesia and Malaysia) are the ones that are doing the most with MOOCs. This result can be explained by the fact that teachers are at the forefront of the use of OER in Asian higher education and that Indonesia is making significant progress in the production and distribution of OER under the leadership of the University of Terbuka [26] which produced a series of materials in English and Indonesian and distributed them exten- sively to all students, including other universities in the country with the support of the UNESCO program on OER [27].
The countries in South America (Brazil, Chile and Colombia) are the ones that least carried out actions with MOOCs, being important to note that Colombia presents Table 3. Total participants who have already created, used, modified and/or shared a MOOC
Country Participants Created, used, modified and/or shared a MOOC
Used a MOOC
Created a MOOC
Modified a MOOC
Shared a MOOC Qty %
South Africa
621 13.0% 39.5% 28.3% 4.8% 6.9% 3.1%
Brazil 287 6.0% 21.3% 12.2% 1.7% 2.8% 5.2%
Chile 293 6.1% 29.7% 17.1% 2.4% 5.5% 9.2%
Colombia 170 3.6% 47.1% 43.5% 0.6% 3.5% 12.9%
Ghana 817 17.1% 45.3% 32.3% 3.8% 7.8% 3.3%
India 437 9.1% 58.1% 24.3% 5.5% 19.9% 9.6%
Indonesia 645 13.5% 83.1% 27.3% 5.1% 43.7% 7.9%
Malaysia 716 15.0% 55.0% 20.0% 4.3% 25.6% 6.8%
Kenya 798 16.7% 38.5% 28.8% 8.9% 3.3% 2.0%
Total 4784 100.0% 48.8% 26.2% 4.9% 14.9% 5.6%
different results. This can be explained by the fact that, although Brazil has several OER initiatives and that Chile has a policy of free access, only Colombia has a document with national and institutional guidelines to promote and strengthen the production and management of OER, in addition to producing a document describing the open digital educational resources in Colombia [28]. The analysis of this infor- mation demonstrates the importance of establishing institutional and governmental policies to increase the use of OER, especially MOOCs.
Regarding to gender, women comprised 45.7% of the sample, men 54.1% and 0.2% declared themselves as others genders. Among men, 52.4% reported having used, created, modified and/or shared MOOCs, while among women this number dropped to 44.5%. However, when evaluating the results by country, it is possible to verify that the difference is statistically significant only in Kenya and S. Africa, both African coun- tries, as can be seen in Table4.
Respondents self-assessed their digital skills and 14.3% reported being on an advanced level, 52.4% intermediate level and 33.3% basic level. The distribution of digital skills by country is shown in Table5. Apart from India, where most respondents stated that they possess a basic level of digital skills, most respondents from other countries stated that they had intermediate levels.
Table 4. Use, creation, modification and/or sharing of a MOOC by gender.
Country Gender Created, used, modified and/or shared a MOOC
Used a MOOC
Created a MOOC
Modified a MOOC
Shared a MOOC
% v2 p
Brazil Female 16.5% 2.791 0.095 9.9% 1.7% 0.8% 4.1%
Male 24.7% 13.9% 1.8% 4.2% 6.0%
Chile Female 29.3% 0.033 0.855 19.3% 2.1% 5.0% 5.7%
Male 30.3% 15.1% 2.6% 5.9% 12.5%
Colombia Female 40.8% 1.889 0.169 40.8% 0.0% 1.4% 11.3%
Male 51.5% 45.5% 1.0% 5.1% 14.1%
Ghana Female 44.3% 0.194 0.660 31.9% 3.3% 7.5% 3.6%
Male 45.9% 32.5% 4.1% 8.0% 3.1%
India Female 56.9% 0.290 0.590 20.9% 5.8% 19.6% 11.1%
Male 59.4% 27.8% 5.2% 20.3% 8.0%
Indonesia Female 82.6% 0.103 0.748 25.7% 4.6% 45.4% 8.3%
Male 83.6% 28.2% 5.4% 43.0% 7.7%
Kenya Female 32.4% 10.103 0.001 21.5% 8.1% 4.2% 1.7%
Male 43.4% 34.8% 9.5% 2.5% 2.3%
Malaysia Female 51.6% 4.344 0.114 20.5% 2.6% 23.9% 6.1%
Male 58.7% 19.8% 6.1% 27.1% 7.6%
South Africa
Female 34.6% 8.536 0.003 22.8% 4.9% 6.0% 3.3%
Male 46.3% 36.1% 4.7% 8.2% 2.7%
As seen on Table6, the level of digital skills influences the use and sharing of MOOCs, since the advanced level is the one that most performs this action and the results of the Chi-square test demonstrate a statistically significant difference. This result evidences the arguments presented by Amemado [2] that it is necessary to reduce the digital skills gap to ensure access to MOOCs.
Although the Internet access index is only 49.6% in the world [24], 99.4% of the respondents stated that they had access to the Internet (we must take into consideration that respondents represent a share of the population already engaged in higher edu- cation). Even when this result is evaluated by country, as shown in Table7, we observe that there are no significant differences, even considering the differences in Internet penetration in the surveyed regions, which is 66.7% in South America, 45.2% in Asia and only 27.7% in Africa [24].
However, when assessing the access locations, we can identify that Ghana and Kenya have the lowest indexes of respondents who have Internet access at home.
According to Gulati [21], in order to be successful in the use of educational resources, it is necessary to have Internet access at home, so we evaluated if there are differences in the use, creation, modification and sharing of MOOCs among those who have and do not have access to the Internet at home. However, the results demonstrate that only in Indonesia and South Africa, having Internet access at home significantly increases the variation, use, modification and sharing of MOOCs, as presented in Table 8.
Table 5. Level of digital skills by country.
Country Proficiency level
Basic Intermediate Advanced South Africa 11.0% 54.6% 34.5%
Brazil 46.3% 47.0% 6.6%
Chile 34.8% 53.9% 11.3%
Colombia 17.6% 55.9% 26.5%
Ghana 31.8% 60.0% 8.2%
India 58.6% 34.3% 7.1%
Indonesia 21.1% 57.4% 21.6%
Malaysia 44.6% 46.4% 9.1%
Kenya 36.1% 55.0% 8.9%
Total 33.3% 52.4% 14.3%
Table 6. Level of digital skills by type of actions performed with a MOOC Action performed with a MOOC Level of digital skills v2 p
Advanced Basic Intermediate
Used 32.9% 21.4% 27.5% 37.255 .000
Created 6.4% 4.3% 4.8% 4.631 .099
Modified 14.9% 15.0% 14.9% .008 .996
Shared 7.9% 4.6% 5.6% 9.540 .008
When questioned about satisfaction with Internet connection cost, speed and sta- bility, a large percentage of respondents showed dissatisfaction, as shown in Table9.
This result shows that the countries surveyed need to invest in these requirements because it is not enough that the population has access to the Internet; the access must
Table 7. Internet access location Country Access
to Internet
Access location House of friends and families
Home Coffee shops
Libraries At work or educational institution
Brazil 100.0% 36.9% 96.5% 3.8% 9.4% 70.0%
Chile 99.7% 45.7% 90.4% 9.9% 23.9% 72.4%
Colombia 100.0% 45.9% 94.7% 13.5% 54.7% 84.1%
Ghana 99.4% 22.3% 43.2% 40.1% 35.7% 78.8%
India 99.1% 13.3% 68.4% 26.1% 22.9% 55.4%
Indonesia 99.2% 17.4% 80.8% 37.7% 31.6% 73.2%
Kenya 99.0% 39.8% 28.9% 34.2% 62.7% 85.7%
Malaysia 99.6% 32.5% 90.8% 17.2% 23.3% 74.6%
S. Africa 99.7% 28.3% 74.2% 16.4% 17.1% 85.3%
Table 8. Creation, use, modification and/or sharing of MOOCs by Internet access at home Country % Created, used, modified and/or shared a
MOOC
v2 p With access at home Without access at home
Brazil 98.4% 96.0% 0.784 0.376
Chile 89.7% 90.8% 0.089 0.765
Colombia 95.0% 94.4% 0.026 0.872
Ghana 44.3% 42.3% 0.344 0.557
India 55.9% 85.8% 43.972 0.000
Indonesia 82.8% 70.6% 8.673 0.003
Kenya 31.9% 27.1% 2.146 0.143
Malaysia 91.1% 90.4% 0.117 0.732
South Africa 68.6% 77.9% 6.786 0.009
Table 9. Level of satisfaction with Internet cost, speed and stability Level of satisfaction Cost Speed Stability Very dissatisfied 10.8% 11.1% 11.2%
Dissatisfied 23.8% 26.7% 26.8%
Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 14.3% 12.0% 16.9%
Satisfied 38.9% 39.2% 35.5%
Very satisfied 10.1% 10.4% 8.7%
Not applicable 2.1% 0.5% 1.0%
also be satisfactory and affordable, especially for using MOOCs, that often use a great amount of data (which can increase the cost for users) and that need Internet speed and stability so that users can follow the course.
Figures 1,2and3show the percentages of those who use MOOCs according to the levels of satisfaction with the Internet cost, speed and stability. Analyzing Figs.1,2 and3, we can observe that respondents who are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the requirements of Internet cost, speed and stability use MOOCs less than others.
Chi-square test results showed statistically significant differences (v2cost = 26.224 and p = 0.000;v2speed = 19.927 and p = 0.001; v2stability = 28.160 and p = 0.000).
Fig. 1. Chart of use of MOOCs by level of satisfaction with Internet cost
Fig. 2. Chart of use of MOOCs by level of satisfaction with Internet speed
In addition to adequate Internet access, users must use a device that provides access to all course tools for MOOCs to be successful. 74.3% of respondents use notebooks, 47.8%
use desktops, 30.7% use tablets and 76.5% use cell phones. The results of the Chi-square test show statistically significant differences for respondents who access the Internet with notebooks and desktops (v2notebook = 7.694 and p = 0.006;v2desktop = 84.491 and p = 0.000), however, this difference indicates that the population using these devices has a lower percentage of MOOCs as shown in Fig.4. This result possibly indicates that the use of mobile devices may be more relevant to the use of MOOCs.
Fig. 3. Chart of use of MOOCs by level of satisfaction with Internet stability
Fig. 4. Chart of use of MOOCs by Internet access device
6 Conclusions
Distance education, especially MOOCs, is considered as a potential solution for the democratization of access to quality education. However, when assessing this potential from the perspective of access to technology, we identified that 33.3% of the South America population, 54.5% of Asia population and 72.3% of Africa population cannot benefit from these courses, as they do not yet have Internet access. This study aimed to assess the potential of the democratization of quality education provided by MOOCs, considering the perspective of access to technology, by analyzing the data of university students in 9 different countries.
Significantly different results were presented among the countries surveyed, showing that countries in Asia are the ones that most use, create, modify and share MOOCs, and that countries in South America are the ones that least perform these actions. In all countries, it was possible to observe that the skills to use digital tech- nologies, as well as the quality of access, influence the level of use of MOOCs.
Thus, for MOOCs to reach their full potential, government actions that democratize access to technology, taking into account the Internet cost, speed and stability, as well as actions aimed at reducing the digital skills gap, are determinant factors for the use of MOOCs as presented in the results of this study. Actions are also necessary to equalize access to educational resources between men and women in Kenya and South Africa, as the results show statistically significant differences in the use of MOOCs between men and women in those countries.
Considering that the use of mobile devices is high among the respondents of the research, it is important that the courses are developed with technologies that adapt to the different forms of access of the users, as presented by Teixeira et al. [12].
It is also relevant to highlight that the results presented in this study refer to a sample that has access to higher education and that, therefore, the results for the population that do not have access to this level of education can be even more meaningful, demonstrating that a great part of the potential population to be benefited by the phenomenon of MOOCs still remains disadvantaged due to the technological barrier.
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