Discovering disciplinary differences: blending data sources to explore the student online behaviors in a University English course

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to explore disciplinary differences in completing blended learning tasks in an academic literacy course and the feasibility of adopting a blended learning analytics approach to explore disciplinary differences.Design/methodology/approachFollowing a learning analytics approach, this study blends data from the learning management system and timetabling arrangements.FindingsResults suggest that online behaviors of design students and accounting students are different in terms of starting day and completion rate. Blending data sources also provides a new perspective to our learning analytics study.Originality/valueThis study is an important contribution to the field because studies on learning analytics with multiple data sources are rare, and most disciplinary studies rely on survey data; students’ actual behaviors are under-explored.