Assessing the impact of controllable open learner models on student engagement

As poor student engagement with online learning remains an open issue, this research aims to assess the impact that scrutable and controllable open learner models have on enhancing student engagement. This paper presents personalized visual narratives that display the learner's engagement with his/her course content, the time spent on course tasks, resources used, and peer comparisons. The visual narratives include the student's learner model which presents his/her performance and development to date and supports visual scrutinization. It also enables the student to challenge his/her system calculated knowledge levels. The research discussed in this paper shows how the visual narratives, specifically how the visual scrutinization and challenging of knowledge levels enhanced the engagement levels of undergraduate students enrolled in an online learning module.

I. Introduction

As online learning continues to grow, poor student engagement with such environments has remained an open issue. Research has shown how student engagement with online learning decreases over time and the impact this has on learning and development [9]. This work aims to support student engagement in online learning through negotiable open learner models which enable students to explore and challenge their knowledge levels.