Relationship between learners' behaviours, preferences and their individual differencess in massive open online courses

This study intended to examine the relationship between learners' individual differences, behaviours and preferences in Anadolu University's Massivie Open Online Course Platform, AKADEMA. In this study, individual differences were considered as students' demographics, digital literacy skills, learning strategies and online learning experiences. First, it revealed the learners' individual characteristics, their preferences regarding the learing materials and the degree of being active in this platform. Then it is investigated that the relationship between participants' individual differences, their material preferences and activity levels. Profiles of AKADEMA participants are adult individuals who have completed the traditional learning process, are willing to get non-formal and informal learning experiences, and have high levels of education. The participant group is also found that digital literacy skills were quite high, they used different learning strategies while studying, and they participated in the platform passive level. There is a statistically significant difference in the degree of being active of the students in the AKADEMA platform in terms of their ages. It has been seen that as students grow older, they become more active in the platform. On the other hand, the degree of being active of the students is statistically significant in terms of digital literacy skills. It has been determined that active students differ significantly from passive students. It is shown that active learners' digital literacy skills are higher than passive students. In the last part, suggestions are made to researchers, practitioners and instructional designers based on the findings of the research. Keywords: Openness in Education,Open and Distance Learning, Massive Open Online Courses,Individual Differences,Digital Literacy,Learning Strategies,Online Learning Experience.