Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pennsylvania published a new Journal of Marketing study that examines online educational platforms and the question of whether they should release content through a scheduled format that resembles a traditional university course or use an on-demand release strategy.
The study, forthcoming in Journal of Marketing, is titled “ More Likely to Pay but Less Engaged: The Effects of Switching Online Courses from Scheduled to On-Demand Release on User Behavior ” and is authored by Joy Lu, Eric T. Bradlow, and J. Wesley Hutchinson.
In 2011, the online education industry catered to around 300,000 consumers. In 2021, it served 220 million, thanks in part to increased enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Traditional universities and institutions are increasingly adopting hybrid course formats. For example, the number of full-time online MBA students surpassed in-person MBA students for the first time in the 2020-21 academic year.
Today, online educational platforms like Coursera and edX offer a range of flexible course content, but these firms are faced with a tricky question: Should they release content through a scheduled format that resembles a traditional university course with a subset of lectures and quizzes available at the start of each week, or should they follow in the footsteps of Netflix and Hulu with an on-demand release strategy where all the material is immediately available upon registration?
This new Journal of Marketing article finds that the choice of format for content release not only impacts overall user engagement and firm revenue but also user performance and learning outcomes.
The researchers studied over 67,000 users taking an introductory marketing course on Coursera consisting of 32 short lecture videos and 4 quizzes. The study took advantage of a natural experiment policy change where the platform switched the course from a scheduled format to an on-demand release format while keeping the actual content the same.
The scheduled format closely resembled a traditional university course, with some of the study material available at the beginning of each week for four weeks. In the on-demand format, all four weeks of content was made available upon registration. All users could take the course for free or opt into paying for a completion certificate, either as a one-time fee in the scheduled format or a monthly subscription in the on-demand format.
The study’s findings show that the switch to on-demand content doubled the percentage of paying users from 14% to 28%. Lu explains that “the on-demand format was successful in increasing short-term firm revenue by bringing in more paying users. On the downside, the switch resulted in significantly lower lecture completion rates and lower quiz performance.”
The on-demand format also negatively impacted downstream platform engagement. The marketing course was promoted in a “Business Foundations” set with three other courses on operations, accounting, and finance. “Compared to users in the scheduled format, those in the on-demand format ended up taking one or two fewer additional courses six months after the focal marketing course,” says Bradlow.
Analysis of user activity reveals two new learning patterns:
This study offers vital lessons for chief marketing officers in the online education space:
Full article and author contact information available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222429241227145
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The Journal of Marketing develops and disseminates knowledge about real-world marketing questions useful to scholars, educators, managers, policy makers, consumers, and other societal stakeholders around the world. Published by the American Marketing Association since its founding in 1936, JM has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the marketing discipline. Shrihari (Hari) Sridhar (Joe Foster ’56 Chair in Business Leadership, Professor of Marketing at Mays Business School, Texas A&M University) serves as the current Editor in Chief.
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Journal of Marketing
More Likely to Pay but Less Engaged: The Effects of Switching Online Courses from Scheduled to On-Demand Release on User Behavior
8-Jan-2024