NEW VERSION--Learning Analytics: Research on Student Engagement

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Student engagement is key to learning, which comes in many forms such as raising a hand and asking a question in class, skimming through an assigned reading, or 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 grades (Quaye et al. 2019).

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 (CourseWorks powered by Canvas, Blackboard, Google Classroom, etc.), and learning activities to monitor and maximize engagement (Reeve, 2012) (Johar et al., 2023).

But where do instructors start in increasing student engagement in their classes?

How can instructors know what is working and what is not?

How can instructors find out which students need more of a push to engage?

If you are wondering about these questions as how to help student learning, you are not alone. Dr. Samantha Garbers, aka Sam, who is an associate professor at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, had been thinking about exactly the same questions over and over again. 

The course Sam teaches is a qualitative methods course for Public Health, and part of the core curriculum. It is a hard course on statistics. Even though abundant supporting materials such as readings and videos had been provided to students, students didn’t much take advantage of them. Sam and colleagues had observed that there's a significant relationship between engaging with the course materials, and the grades on specific assessments that directly mapped onto these course materials. As an avid researcher and proponent of the scholarship of teaching and learning, Sam wanted to understand why students’ engagement with course material was low, and how to improve that. Specifically, being aware of reports on nudges, which seek to help people make beneficial changes in behavior without significantly changing incentives (Szaszi et al., 2018), she asked: Can incorporating nudges in courseworks site help my students to engage more?

With that question in mind, Sam reached out to the Science of Learning Research Initiative (SOLER), who is dedicated to support teaching faculty to attach evidence of efficacy and improvement to their work, demonstrating effective and skillful teaching. SOLER introduced Sam to 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 (Learning Analytics). 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, we observe patterns to test hypotheses with a controlled experiment. This was exactly what Sam wanted.

With a research grant from SOLER, Sam together with colleague Roxanne, who is assistant dean of digital learning at Mailman School of Public Health, officially embarked on the learning analytics project with continuous support from SOLER along the way. Since its inception in 2021, this project has walked through three phases of investigations. As is the case with any scientific discoveries, the road to insights is never a straight line. Despite careful analysis of learning analytics data, phase I findings suggested that canvas nudges failed to boost student engagement (Garbers et al.,2023). The results were calling to take an unexpected turn, as Sam did. Taking a step back in phase II, Sam and colleagues interviewed students on their learning motivations and realized that student engagement is affected by learning, efficiency, academic expectations, and external rewards, based on which they classified students into learners, doers, and performers (Russell et al.,2025). Thus, in phase III, tailored nudges were designed to tap into students’ learning motivations. Learning analytics revealed significantly higher engagements among those who received them (Garbers et al.,2025). 

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 and receive a report on students’ activities, grades, etc. We invite you to use SOLER’s interactive demonstration interface to get a more comprehensive report.

All instructions are provided and no prior coding experience is required.