Learning Analytics as a Method to Examine Students' Learning Patterns in an Online Module

This research relates to the investigation of the written discussions in an asynchronous online activity, namely a blog activity that forms part of a fully online module for first year undergraduate students. The aims of this study were to (i) analyse the quality and depth of different levels of interactions by categorising students' responses into one of the three following categories: paraphrasing, value addition and critical thinking; (ii) explore of the relationship between this specific blog learning activity and development of higher order thinking skills of students; and (iii) investigate on possible patterns of learner behaviour in an online learning environment in the context of newly developed Web-based educational technologies at the VCILT, University of Mauritius. The study corpus used is a transcript of 764 postings generated by a group of 800 first year students engaged in a 6-credit general education module (GEM) delivered totally online in a time span of one year.