The Collaboration: Mailman School of Public Health + SOLER
[Video coming soon]
Student Engagement
A key aspect of learning, student engagement can take many forms, such as raising a hand or asking a question in class, skimming through an assigned reading, and reviewing old lecture slides (Johar et al., 2023). By actively interacting with instructors or instructor-provided materials, students improve their intellectual skills, practical competence, moral development, self-image, and performance (Li & Xue, 2023).
As a mediator between course content and students' learning, student engagement motivates instructors to be intentional about how they design their course content, course learning management system (e.g. CourseWorks powered by Canvas), as well as learning activities to monitor and maximize engagement (Reeve, 2012).
Dr. Garbers's Course
If you are wondering about how to foster student learning, you are not alone. Dr. Samantha Garbers, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, has thought about similar questions in a course that she previously taught.
Dr. Garbers taught a course on qualitative methods that is part of the core curriculum. It is a challenging course in the field of statistics; although supplementary learning materials—such as readings and videos—were available, many students did not make use of them. Dr. Garbers and her colleagues had observed a clear link between engagement with the course materials and performance on specific assessments directly related to those materials. As a dedicated researcher and proponent of the scholarship of teaching and learning, Dr. Garbers wanted to understand why student engagement with the course content was so low and how this could be improved. In light of reports about so-called "nudges"—measures designed to encourage people to make beneficial behavioral changes without significantly altering incentives—she specifically asked: Can the use of nudges on the course platform help increase my students' engagement? (Szaszi et al., 2018)
Learning Analytics
With that question in mind, Dr. Garbers reached out to SOLER, which supports teaching faculty by attaching evidence of efficacy and improvement to their teaching and work. SOLER and Dr. Garbers delved deeper into learning analytics—the collection, analysis, interpretation and communication of data about learners and their learning that provides theoretically relevant and actionable insights to enhance learning and teaching (Svabensky et al., 2026). In fact, one of SOLER’s objectives is to utilize learning analytics to identify strategies to increase student engagement. For example, by processing learning analytics data from Canvas access data, Panopto view records, and even Vocareum activity, patterns to test hypotheses with a controlled experiment can be observed.
The Collaboration Between Dr. Garbers and Dr. Russell
With a research grant from SOLER, Dr. Garbers and Mailman's Assistant Dean of Digital Learning, Dr. Roxanne Russell, officially embarked on the learning analytics project. Since its inception in 2021, this project has undergone three phases of investigation. As is the case with any scientific discoveries, the road to insights is never straightforward. Despite careful analysis of learning analytics data, Phase I findings suggested that Canvas nudges failed to boost student engagement (Garbers et al., 2023). Taking a step back in Phase II, the team interviewed students on their learning motivations and realized that student engagement is affected by learning, efficiency, academic expectations, and external rewards. Based on these results, they classified students into learners, doers, and performers (Russell et al., 2025). In Phase III, tailored nudges were designed to tap into students’ learning motivations; recipients of these nudges demonstrated significantly higher engagement (Garbers et al., 2025).
Read more about the published papers below.
Digital advances in the learning space have changed the contours of student engagement as well as how it is measured. Learning management systems and other learning technologies now provide information about student behaviors with course materials in the form of learning analytics. In the context of a large, integrated and interdisciplinary Core curriculum course in a graduate school of public health, this study undertook a pilot randomized controlled trial testing the effect of providing a “behavioral nudge” in the form of digital images containing specific information derived from learning analytics about past student behaviors and performance. Read the full paper here.
Learning analytics are often used as proxies for student engagement. More qualitative data on how post-secondary students engage with course elements are needed to guide the design, development and deployment of learning analytics information, particularly in the use of nudge techniques. In the context of a graduate-level quantitative course within a public health core curriculum, the following research questions were explored: What do students cite as their motivations when making decisions about whether, when or how to engage with course content and learning supports? and What are student reactions to visual prompts designed to activate these motivations? Read the full paper here.
Student engagement predicts favorable educational outcomes. Nudges are increasingly applied to higher education contexts to promote engagement. A randomized study in a large quantitative analysis public health course deployed nudges catered to students’ intrinsic motivations. Participants (n = 127) self-selected into motivation groups (Learners [n = 46], Doers [n = 48], or Performers [n = 33]); half were randomized to receive four nudges tailored to their motivation group. Read the full paper here.
Your Turn: Access a Course Analytics Report and Run the Interactive Demonstration
Did you know that your students’ interactions with Canvas materials are right at your fingertips?
Follow the GIF tutorial below to learn more about this Canvas feature. You will find out which Canvas materials your students engage with and receive a report on students’ activities, grades, etc.
All instructions are provided—no prior coding experience required.
Instructions for Accessing Course Learning Analytics Report
Click on Course Analytics, located on the left (Figure 1)
Information on average grades and grades of specific assignments (Figure 2)
Number of times students have viewed or interacted with Canvas materials (Figure 3)
You can scroll down on the same page to see which Canvas materials students interacted with the most or least (Figure 4)
Information and activity of individual students
Run reports (Figure 6)
View the downloaded csv (Figure 7)
- To try the demonstration, have either your own course learning analytics report [see "Instructions for Accessing Course Learning Analytics Report"] OR this sample file ready.
- Visit this interactive demonstration interface, then upload that course learning analytics report and run the code.
A GIF visualization of the interactive demonstration is provided above. The interactive demonstration interface was created by Sophia Windemuth, a former SOLER Student Assistant (SSA).