Combining self-reported and clickstream data to understand university students’ learning experiences and outcomes in flipped classrooms

Abstract

This study examined the relationships between students’ self-reported perceptions of learning environment, students’ course marks, learning strategy and online study duration measured by clickstream data in an undergraduate flipped classroom course amongst a cohort of Australian first-year university students. The clickstream data identified two groups of students using two distinct learning strategies focusing either on completing the assessments in the course or on the learning activities preparing for the face-to-face learning. Students’ perceptions of learning environment were measured by a self-reported questionnaire. Using cluster analysis, students were grouped as either having positive or negative perceptions. Of the students who adopted a learning strategy focusing on assessments, a significantly higher proportion of them hold negative perceptions of learning environment. In contrast, amongst students who used a learning strategy focusing on completing the preparation activities, a significantly lower proportion of them had negative perceptions. Furthermore, students who hold negative perceptions were also found to study less hours than their classmates who had positive perceptions. The multiple regression analyses showed that self-reported perceptions could explain only 4.8% of variance in students’ course marks, whereas learning strategy and online study duration measured by clickstream data predicted around 17.2% of variance in students’ course marks.