Tracking student behavior, persistence, and achievement in online courses

The purpose of this research was to examine student engagement in totally asynchronous online courses through an empirical analysis of student behavior online and its relationship to persistence and achievement. A total of 13 sections of three undergraduate, general education courses provided the setting for the study. Three hundred fifty-four students were used in the data analysis. Using student access computer logs, student behaviors defined as frequency of participation and duration of participation were documented for eight variables. The descriptive data revealed significant differences in online participation between withdrawers and completers and between successful completers and non-successful completers. A multiple regression analysis was used to evaluate how well student participation measures predicted achievement. Approximately 31% of the variability in achievement was accounted for by student participation measures, and three of the eight variables were statistically significant.