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New study of low MOOC completion rates | Inside Higher Ed

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Notice that technical courses and courses that were "automated" had higher completion rates. 
New study of low MOOC completion rates | Inside Higher Ed: The course with the highest rate of completion was "Functional Programming Principles in Scala," from Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, offered on the MOOC platform Coursera. According to Jordan's research, some 19.2 percent of the 50,000 students who enrolled completed the course. 
At the other end of the spectrum was "A History of the World since 1300" by Princeton University, also hosted by Coursera, which reportedly recruited 83,000 students with just 0.8 percent reaching the end. 
Five of the top six most-completed MOOCs relied on automatic marking alone, meaning that no peer assessment was required. Courses that relied purely on peer grading generally fared far worse in terms of the percentage of students reaching the end.
My assumptions:

Technical students do better in a technology-mediated course. Online is "normal" to these students.

Many technical individuals like to work alone, avoiding group work and collaborative learning. Again, the online situation works well for these students.
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