The Relationship Between Quality of Student Contribution in Learning Activities and their Overall Performances in an Online Course

Abstract

In this research we studied the correlation between the level of students’ online participation and their overall performances. We examined in this study, the participation level in different learning activities assigned to two large cohorts of learners, and compared them with their final grades at the end of the year. We defined the quality of their participation in the online course as being classified into the level of learning activities in which they participated. Learning activities were grouped into four levels which were identified namely at the knowledge, understanding, critical thinking skills and practical competencies. The findings revealed that participation in higher-order online learning activities, that is the higher ability to show critical skills and practical competencies, resulted in better grades of the learners in the module. However, the results also highlighted that overall students had a tendency to score more marks in the knowledge category as the activities required lower order cognitive skills. It was further observed that low performers demonstrated a tendency to obtain lower marks in all the four grouping levels and vice-versa for high performers. Two key elements can be concluded from the findings. The first aspect is about instructional design of such online courses where there is a need for the inclusion of learning activities targeted at the development of different types of skills, and second is the distribution and weighting given to these categories. The recommendation is that for first year students, a greater weighting of marks toward knowledge level activities will generally encourage good performances, and this could be gradually reviewed when they move on to level 2 onwards in their studies.

Participation is Predictive of Individual, but Not Group, Work in the Context of a Blended General Education Course

“…Similarly, Bettinger and colleagues (2016) found that more active participation in discussion forums was linked to higher achievement in the course. Moreover, the results of an investigation on students' online participation and achievement in a course by Banoor et al (2018) shows that engaging students in online activities that require higher levels of critical thinking is linked to better grades. Future research should continue to investigate how to optimize the use of the online components of blended courses, specifically in terms of both the quality and quantity of participation activities.…”

Examining Students’ Online Course Perceptions and Comparing Student Performance Outcomes in Online and Face-to-Face Classrooms

“…Participation in higher-order online learning activities has been linked with increased grades. Low performers commonly exhibit lower levels of participation across learning activities (Banoor, Rennie, & Santally, 2018), as well as displaying lower levels of persistence (Faulconer, Griffith, Wood, Acharyya, & Roberts, 2018). Further, those who complete courses successfully exhibit higher levels of engagement in online learning activities than those who withdraw (Morris, Finnegan, & Wu, 2005).…”

Action competence in obstetric emergencies—can this be achieved via e-learning? Interprofessional blended learning module on diagnostics and emergency treatment of shoulder dystocia

“…The creators of the e-learning researched in this study had deliberately limited the amount of knowledge to be imparted to about one hour of learning time and communicated to students in advance the obligation to complete the e-learning. Furthermore, especially with action-based e-learning, the practical application of knowledge learned online strengthens participant engagement, which reinforces the use of a blended learning format for teaching action skills [ 45 , 46 ]. The saving of personnel and spatial resources in the clinical everyday life and the option of asynchronous teaching makes it possible to call up the contents at any time.…”