TITLE:
Does Greater Engagement in Online General Education Courses Lead to Better Academic Performance? Evidence from Chinese University Students
AUTHORS:
Yan Yang
KEYWORDS:
Online General Education Courses, Online Learning Engagement, Academic Performance
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.6,
June
25,
2021
ABSTRACT: Although there is a plethora of online learning engagement studies,
relatively little attention has been paid to the relationship between learning
engagement and academic performance in the context of online general education
courses. Accordingly, this study takes an online general education course
offered by a university in eastern China as an example, proposes a model for
evaluating online learning engagement and specific metrics for the model, and
conducts a cluster analysis of the online learning engagement of 422
undergraduate students who took the course as sample data through a clustering K-means algorithm. Based on the
relationship between learners’ online learning behavioral engagement and
academic performance, learners were classified into three categories: “active
learners”, “go-with-the-flow learners” and “passive learners”. The study
concludes that the classification of online learning engagement and academic
performance is beneficial for teachers and administrators to grasp the whole
learning process of learners in the context of online general education
courses, clarify the types of online learning engagement and their characteristics,
and provide data reference for students’ personalized learning support service
system, thus promoting the establishment of a high-quality school-based general
education course system.