Towards Connectivism: Exploring Student Use of Online Learning Management Systems during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound global impact on students, necessitating a shift towards fully remote e-learning via digital learning management systems (LMS). Despite this significant shift, there is a paucity of research exploring how students of varying academic performance levels engage with e-learning resources. This study addresses this gap by leveraging self-regulated learning theory and connectivism theory to analyze 129,567 activity logs from an Australian public research university. These logs encompass the online learning activities of 313 students and provide insights into their utilization of course files, discussion forums, gradebook, and online quizzes. Our analysis reveals significant differences in how students of varying academic performance levels engage with these resources. We found that higher-performing students tend to view course files, view and create forum posts, and access online quizzes more frequently, suggesting a positive correlation between active engagement with these resources and academic performance. However, the frequency of gradebook views did not significantly differ among students of different performance levels, indicating that grade tracking may not be a strong determinant of academic success. These findings underscore the importance of active engagement with online resources in academic success and provide valuable insights for educators and institutions in designing online courses and strategies to support student learning. The study also highlights the need for further research to understand the nuances of student engagement with e-learning resources. The implications of these findings extend beyond the pandemic, contributing to the broader discourse on e-learning and academic performance.