Beyond engagement analytics: which online mixed-data factors predict student learning outcomes?

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"First, after rigorous literature review, three common demographic factors related to student online course outcomes were tested, namely age, gender and culture. These three demographic factors were found to be unrelated to student online course outcomes. Testing demographic factors as predictors is a common preliminary step when performing regression analysis in online higher education. Furthermore, age, gender and culture were not correlated with one another either. This was similar to a similar study in Spain by Iglesias-Pradas et al. (2015). Several additional tests were added to the current study to ensure there were no cross-correlations between these demographic factors and with grade. Pre and post testing was also applied at the start of the course to motivate students to become familiar with the online IT, and also to ensure potential lack of IT understanding with the course did not result in lower grades (regression tests confirmed this). Next, Moodle engagement analytics indicators were for the most part completely useless in predicting student online learning outcomes. None of the analytic factors were significant, except for course logins, which is clearly a predicate of any online activity. This finding was similar to the result found by Iglesias-Pradas et al. (2015) and also by Zacharis (2015). However, the sample size was larger here and the tests were more rigorous using a ratio data type as the dependent variable." (p. 18)

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