Massive Open Online Course is effective at providing concussion education
By Camilla Smith-Donald. This article was initially published in the 4/11/24 edition of our Concussion Update newsletter; please consider subscribing.
As reported in a recent study, a massive open online course (MOOC) developed by Laval University (Quebec, Canada) offering education on concussion was found to have considerable success, suggesting courses like this could be an important tool for spreading concussion prevention and treatment information in the future. Authors Fremont et al. write that MOOCs are ideal for disseminating widely relevant public health information with minimal barriers because they are free and available to anyone with a valid email address. Of those who registered for the course, about 30% completed it, a percentage on par with the highest completion rates seen for other MOOCs.
The course was broken down into six modules, including “Prevention,” “Detection,” “Management,” and “Access to Care.” To increase accessibility, the course implemented mobile learning strategies, such as having flexible content types (e.g., video or podcast), limiting workload to a few hours per module, limiting overall duration to six weeks, and including discussion forums that allowed course members to interact with each other and communicate about concussion-related issues. The study also employed adaptive learning, offering optional additional course pathways for healthcare, school, or sports stakeholders. These strategies likely contributed to the high completion rate of the MOOC and are important things to consider when creating future online courses.
One of the major barriers in concussion science is the need for more public understanding of the most up-to-date research and findings, as it is often only elite athletes who have access to the latest progress in the field. For this course, of those who reported their affiliations, more than half of the participants were healthcare professionals other than MDs, and about 10% were coaches and sports administrators. There is still a need for better evaluation components built into these courses to ensure their efficacy. However, the response to this MOOC is highly encouraging about the role online courses could play in disseminating concussion information.
