Mapping student online actions

TY - CONF

T1 - Mapping student online actions

AU - Bruun, Jesper

AU - Jensen, Pia

AU - Udby, Linda

PY - 2015/3/27

Y1 - 2015/3/27

N2 - The Virtual Neutrons for Teaching project (vnt.nmi3.org) has converted traditional text book material into a wiki-style online text book that contains the same text and equations as the traditionally styled text book but has added features due to the online nature. Two of these features are hypertext navigability (in-text and navigation bar) and socalled wiki-problems some of which have associated hints and solutions. For these problems, students actively choose whether and when to show problem hints and solutions during problem solving. Students might also navigate the page as part their problem solving strategy. In this study, we use web analytics software to track student online behavior by recording what particular objects on particular web-pages students click on and when each click occurs. For each recorded session, we create networks based on student clicks: A directed link between two nodes, 1 and 2, is drawn, if the object represented by node 2 is clicked right af the object represented by node 1. Preliminary analysis of these networks show two general types of behavior: In one type, there is little interaction with the online contents. The student navigates to the page on which the problem occurs and quickly presses "show hint"/"show solution" when these options are available. Networks of these sessions are characterized by big loops and relatively few hubs. In the other type, there seems to be more interaction with the online content. The student navigates pages, returns to the problem text, presses "show hint"/"show solution", but hides them again and sometimes re-open after having visited.

AB - The Virtual Neutrons for Teaching project (vnt.nmi3.org) has converted traditional text book material into a wiki-style online text book that contains the same text and equations as the traditionally styled text book but has added features due to the online nature. Two of these features are hypertext navigability (in-text and navigation bar) and socalled wiki-problems some of which have associated hints and solutions. For these problems, students actively choose whether and when to show problem hints and solutions during problem solving. Students might also navigate the page as part their problem solving strategy. In this study, we use web analytics software to track student online behavior by recording what particular objects on particular web-pages students click on and when each click occurs. For each recorded session, we create networks based on student clicks: A directed link between two nodes, 1 and 2, is drawn, if the object represented by node 2 is clicked right af the object represented by node 1. Preliminary analysis of these networks show two general types of behavior: In one type, there is little interaction with the online contents. The student navigates to the page on which the problem occurs and quickly presses "show hint"/"show solution" when these options are available. Networks of these sessions are characterized by big loops and relatively few hubs. In the other type, there seems to be more interaction with the online content. The student navigates pages, returns to the problem text, presses "show hint"/"show solution", but hides them again and sometimes re-open after having visited.

KW - Faculty of Science

KW - networks

KW - learning

KW - e-learning

KW - complexity

KW - netværk

KW - kompleksitet

KW - læring

KW - e-læring

M3 - Poster

T2 - Complenet 2015

Y2 - 25 March 2015 through 27 March 2015

ER -