More alike than we think: what learners in six countries want to know

Abstract

Reports based on app data often highlight differences between countries: one nationwants this, another wants that. We looked for such differences in NerdSip, a mobile microlearningapp, using a design that guards against finding what we hoped to find. We split 8,089learners at random, wrote eight predictions into a public preregistration after exploring one half,and tested them once on the other half. What we found was mostly sameness: people who want tolearn, it seems, want to learn much the same things, wherever they live. In all six countries withenough learners, the same categories rise and fall: Health & Wellness above the averageeverywhere, Business & Career and Lifestyle & Skills above it almost everywhere, Nature & Worldand Science & Tech below it everywhere. A learner's preference for a category varies about 13times as much between individuals as between countries, so where someone lives tells us almostnothing about what they choose to learn. Learners also learn at the same time of day: in everycountry with enough learners, activity peaks between 8 pm and midnight. The one clear differenceconcerns follow-through, not preference. Learners in Germany finish more of the courses they addthan learners in any of the other five countries (42% against 35% in the United States), and the gaparises before the first lesson.