Abstract
Early detection of at-risk students is essential, especially in the university environment. Moreover, personalized learning has been shown to increase motivation and lower student dropout rates. At present, the average dropout rates among students following courses leading to the award of Spanish university degrees are around 18% and 42.8% for presential teaching and online courses, respectively. The objectives of this study are: (1) to design and to implement a Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) plugin, “eOrientation”, for the early detection of at-risk students; (2) to test the effectiveness of the “eOrientation” plugin on university students. We worked with 279 third-year students following health sciences degrees. A process for extracting information records was also implemented. In addition, a learning analytics module was developed, through which both supervised and unsupervised Machine Learning techniques can be applied. All these measures facilitated the personalized monitoring of the students and the easier detection of students at academic risk. The use of this tool could be of great importance to teachers and university governing teams, as it can assist the early detection of students at academic risk. Future studies will be aimed at testing the plugin using the Moodle environment on degree courses at other universities.
Highlights
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs https://ec.europa.eu/environment/sustainable-development/SDGs/index_en.htm) lists a number of social challenges to which universities have to respond
Learning Management Systems (LMSs) tools can be used to analyse the records of student and teacher interactions on the Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle) platform throughout the teaching–learning process; this facilitates the follow-up of students and the detection of students at risk of either failure or academic abandonment
The visualization of the monitoring through easy-to-use tools for the teacher is a commitment in the framework of a modern university for the 21st century that aims to respond to the challenges of the
Summary
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs https://ec.europa.eu/environment/sustainable-development/SDGs/index_en.htm) lists a number of social challenges to which universities have to respond. Other studies have shown that approximately 48% of teachers are not using those same resources efficiently [4,5] This aspect is a challenge for research into technological innovation in university teaching. The ultimate objective is to improve the effectiveness of student learning—effectiveness that is based on the acquisition of skills related to the practical implementation of conceptual and procedural contents learned within the university environment, so that they can be efficiently applied following graduation.
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