Students’ engagement with eLearning tools: their impact on academic performance

This study examines the effect of synchronous and asynchronous online activities on students’ academic performance. Using student usage data captured in the log files of an adaptive Moodle learning platform, we find students’ total synchronous and asynchronous interactions are positively related to overall course performance for both face-to-face (F2F) and distance learners (DL) modes. The students’ use of both synchronous and asynchronous resources exhibits a positive and strong relationship with course performance for F2F learners, but not for DL. In addition, viewings of forum posts have a significant and positive effect on DL performance, but such a significant effect was not found for F2F learners, highlighting the importance of asynchronous interactivity for DL. The study also reveals that attendance at online live classes does not impact student performance for both learning modes; it is the engagement (i.e., asking and answering queries) in these classes that positively affects students’ academic performance