Abstract:

We present new evidence, focusing on 'last minute' study habits, and determine if they yield a successful examination result. The detailed study was carried out on a large undergraduate stage 1 computer science class with over 400 students and provides significant insight in how the students were engaging with the learning. We aim that the results of this paper will enlighten educators by highlighting some of the effective (and less effective) ways students are engaging with digital learning.

The stage 1 computer science class being analysed in the paper is assessed by means of a class test, a project assignment, and a final examination. For this research, the main focus is on how students revised for the final examination, particularly if ‘last minute’ revision yielded a favourable examination result. We used analytics data from the CANVAS Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), video analytics data from Microsoft (MS) Stream and MS Teams synchronous lecture attendance to determine the students study habits leading up to the examination.

It was found that only less than a half of the class of 400 joined the online lecture synchronously for all the lectures. Synchronous attendance at the first online lecture peaked at 172 students; and it reduced to only 80 students attending the last lecture which was a revision lecture. This low attendance at the last lecture prompted significant inquiries regarding the students' level of engagement. For example, did the students view the lecture shortly after, or did they watch it the day prior to the examination? The MS Stream viewing data confirmed that 185 students (approximately 50% of the class) watched the Revision Lecture only on the day before the examination! The question was, did the ‘last minute’ revision produce a good examination result? The answer would appear to be ‘not quite’. We found that the group of students who only accessed the revision video ‘last minute’ were scoring 5-9% below the class average, clearly showing this is not the most effective approach to prepare for examinations.

In an attempt to ascertain the best recipe for achieving examination success, we studied the examination grades of all 80 students who were in attendance at the online (synchronous) Revision Lecture. Interestingly, this group of students were twice as likely to attain a first-class honours examination result (>70%) compared to their class average, and 1.5 times more likely to obtain an upper second-class honours (2:1) grade. Undoubtedly, this provides evidence that students who actively participate in synchronous lectures will achieve more favourable results.

Our final investigation was to study the overall engagement level of the entire 400-student cohort by examining the VLE page view data. The findings revealed that students who are within the average range of VLE page views throughout the entire course tended to be the top performers, drawing the conclusion that many students, despite having poor online lecture attendance, are likely to be engaging asynchronously through the VLE. Although, the results from this study show that if this engagement is ‘last minute’, it will lead to poorer student attainment and that there is no substitute for a healthy degree of engagement throughout the module delivery, to achieve the best results.

The full paper aims to go deeper into this study and will include detailed graphs and statistical analysis of the findings.

Keywords:

Academic performance, online education, virtual learning environment, student attendance, online engagement, online higher education.