Today’s blog post is a little different. Yesterday, the second run of our MMTed edX MOOC (Modern Monetary Theory: Economics for the 21st Century) ended after running for the past 4 weeks. This is a free course developed by Newcastle University and – MMTed – Introduction to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). The course is self-paced and includes a range of learning materials (videos, texts, forums, assignments, exercises, games, etc.). After offering the course for two years, I thought you might want to see some statistics related to who took the course by gender, educational background, and geography. I have more data than I have available today, and I’m studying this data as a way to understand behavioral patterns. We will use this data to improve our MMTed courses as our funding base allows.
Course summary
This – edX page – Provides an overview of the study plan for the 2022 course (enrollment now closed).
In the beginning, when we designed the course, I had no preconceptions about who would be interested in it.
One of our goals in the course is to help participants enter the world of macroeconomics in a way that builds their confidence, their economic literacy, and most importantly, makes them think about how it affects the world we live in.
The course starts with the basics in the first week. We break down some of the jargon and concepts in macroeconomics that often act as barriers preventing laypeople from engaging with economic issues.
We aim to empower participants to transcend these “linguistic” challenges so that they can better translate the macroeconomic terms they encounter every day in the media, engage in meaningful economic conversations with others, and become better able to assess the economy Various statements made by scientists and politicians about economic policy choices.
The difficulty is that I can’t squeeze everything I want students to know about macroeconomics and MMT into a 4-week course. Nor do I want to end a course that only appeals to economists.
So Eclectic is a course that starts with the street and then shows students the best views in the building without going into detail about each topic.
I’ve only touched on many topics in passing because they are more complex and require more time and investment.
In general, however, if students complete this course, they will have a broad and comprehensive understanding of what MMT is and how it is economical thinking about government options to improve the well-being of all. citizens, while protecting our natural environment.
In Week 1, our goal is to improve economic literacy by eliminating jargon that makes relatively simple concepts difficult for the general public to understand. Exciting moments came in later weeks, but we felt that learning to walk before running was critical to good running form.
In Week 2, we learned how historical events led to a fundamental shift in the way governments use their currencies, setting the stage for MMT. We build on learned concepts and even have a game show. We provide students with a solid understanding of what causes mass unemployment.
In week 3, the topics became more complex, and we discussed fiscal and monetary policy, banking, interest rates, inflation in more detail, and showed what governments could actually do to address unemployment if they wanted to.
During the final week, we focused on trade, economic development, global capital flows, debates on foreign ownership and financial speculation, and students learned why understanding MMT is critical to addressing the profound problems of an ageing society and climate change.
On a weekly basis, we conduct interviews with MMT experts to guide understanding of selected topics.
Some data on the participants – gender
edX collects vast amounts of data about the courses they offer on behalf of university providers.
Here’s some interesting data to make all sorts of guesses.
First, what is the gender breakdown of the participants – female, male, other (in the edX category).
The graph below shows the gender ratio of people whose gender is disclosed.
In 2021, 56.8% of the class did not reveal their gender.
In 2022, 33% of the class will not reveal their gender.
Of those who did, the graph below shows the distribution.
- 20.68% are women in 2021 and 20.03% in 2022.
- In 2021, it will be 78.14% for men and in 2022 it will be 77.95%.
- 1.18% in 2021 and 2.03% in 2022.
So, for whatever reason, both years of the program are dominated by male participants.
Why? we want to know. Comments welcome.
The graph below shows the trajectory of absolute numbers (suppressed) by sex (women and men) for 2021 and 2022 over the 87 days after enrollment begins.
These courses are 4 calendar weeks in duration but start earlier.
Women are behaving similarly in both years, while men are entering school much earlier in 2022 than in 2021.
Relative to 2021 (over 3600 students), the class size is 1/3 the size of 2022.
Some data about the participants – educational background
Educational background data provides another interesting snapshot.
The chart below shows the breakdown of enrolments (by scale) for 2021 and 2022.
- In 2022, 13.4% of participants have a high school diploma or less (15.1% in 2021).
- 40.7% have a university degree (compared to 40.41% in 2021).
- 44.4% have advanced university degrees (compared to 42.9% in 2021).
So it’s no surprise that those with higher education are taking these MOOCs, which is a little disappointing.
What is the geographic distribution of participants?
In the two years the course has been in place (so far), students from 135 countries have participated (they have already identified their country).
The table below shows the national enrollment ratio for 2021 and 2022.
A blank element for 2021 means no students, while an n/a for 2022 means the same thing for that year.
Below are two maps of enrollment for 2021 (the first time) and 2022.
2021 Geographical Distribution
2022 Geographical Distribution
in conclusion
For students, thank you for signing up. As promised, reviews of quizzes taken during the course will appear for the next four weeks of my weekend quizzes, starting this week.
Any comments are welcome.
I’m sure marketing experts will be able to tell me things about this data.
Enough for today!
(c) Copyright 2022 William Mitchell. all rights reserved.
