Katy Jordan, Ph.D. student at Open University (UK), has announced the results of her research on MOOC completion rates.
Using data from 29 MOOCs, Jordan found the average completion rate to be only 6.8%. However, there was disparity between the completion rates for auto-graded and peer-assessed MOOCs, with auto-graded MOOCs' completion rates (7.7%) better than peer-assessed MOOCs completion rates (4.8%).
Of the MOOCs she studied, Jordan found École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne's (Switzerland) "Functional Programming in Scala," which was hosted by Coursera, had the highest completion rate--a whopping 19.2% of the approximately 50,000 students enrolled completed the course.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, Princeton University's "A History of the World since 1300," also hosted by Coursera, had the lowest completion rate--just 0.8% of the 83,000 enrolled actually completed the course.