Abstract
In this study, profile analysis of 6254
learners, who were from 104 countries and 136 nationalities, registered in Türkçe
Öğreniyorum (Learn Turkish) MOOC, was performed. The aim of this study was
to examine the distribution of Turkish learning reasons, mother tongue, nationality
and country of residence, education level, working status, number of foreign
languages spoken, internet usage habits and interests of learners in addition
to the relationship among these parameters. This is the first study, which includes
such a large and diverse sample, in the study field of teaching Turkish as a
foreign language. Therefore, the study is important since it might provide an
insight into learner demographics to program developers in policy-making
processes. In this research, cross-sectional survey design was used. Data were
collected through the Registration Form
integrated into the learning management system. According to the results, most
of the users, who wanted to learn Turkish as a Foreign Language, lived in Turkey
(n
= 4158, 66.49 %). More than half of the learners did not have a
second language (n = 3796,
60.70 %). The native language of the majority of the
sample was Arabic (n = 5100,
81.55 %). Nearly half of the participants had an
associate or bachelors’ degree (n = 2782,
44.48 %), and approximately
half of the participants were working (n = 2769, %
44.28). Approximately three-quarters of the learners had
not had an online course experience (n = 4617,
73.82 %) and more than half indicated (n
= 4253, % 68.00) using social networks.