Does check-in help? Understanding L2 learners’ autonomous check-in behavior in an English language MOOC through learning analytics
Abstract: Concerns over the quality of teaching in massive open online courses devoted to language learning (LMOOCs) have prompted extensive research on learning behavior in such courses. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of autonomous learning check-ins: a novel learning behavior that has not been studied in previous LMOOC research. The key aims of this research effort are, first, to describe what overall checking-in behavior looks like in a large-scale class, and secondly, to test its effects on other learning behaviors, course completion, and learning outcomes. Using learning analytics among a sample of 11,293 learners, we found that just 6.2% (n=699) autonomously engaged in check-in behavior focused on their learning progress, and that the content that learners chose to check-in varied with context and with which language skills they were seeking to acquire. We further found 1) a positive association between this check-in behavior and completion of the course; 2) that students who chose to check-in showed relatively lower grades in unit quizzes, especially at their early stage of learning, but outperformed the non-check-in group significantly in final scores; and 3) that those who checked in engaged with a significantly wider array of in-class learning components than those who did not, forming a wider system of language learning experiences. Taken together, these results confirm that check-in behavior can aid the process of learning in an LMOOC, and further suggest this behavior’s wider potential for self-directed autonomous online learning. We thus recommend that learning check-ins be formally incorporated into LMOOC education by both instructors and learning-platform designers.