The Impact of Language and Location on the Curriculum Preferences of Online Entrepreneurship Students: An Application of Google Analytics

Abstract

The needs and interests of online learners can be difficult to assess. Large, self-paced, open courses attract learners from different locations, ethnicities, and educational backgrounds. It is critical that instructors and institutions understand the needs and interests of their learners so that curriculum and pedagogy can evolve. In this paper we consider the curriculum preferences of online learners who are accessing asynchronous, self-selected, and self-paced training content related to entrepreneurship. The content is free and is offered in both English and Spanish. We utilize data from Google Analytics, a free application that records critical data about the demographics and behavior of online users, to test hypotheses about the influence of language and location on the preferences and engagement of learners. We find statistically significant differences in the interests and engagement of learners to Spanish content as opposed to our English content. Similarly, we find that location has a statistically significant impact on the curriculum interests and engagement of learners. Using this information, we can design curriculum that is more closely aligned with the interests of our learners and allocate resources to improve pedagogy.

Keywords

• online education
• curriculum
• entrepreneurship
• language