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Examining the designs of computer-based assessment and its impact on student engagement, satisfaction, and pass rates. Computers in Human Behavior, 76 pp. 703-714. For guidance on citations see FAQs.

Educators need to change their practice to adapt to a shifting educational context. By visualising learning design decisions, this article highlights the need to capture educators' "tacit" knowledge relating to course material, activity types and workload, through employing learning analytics methods in order to analyse the learning designs of courses taken by 60,000+ students, common pedagogical patterns are identified. When analysing 157 learning designs using a taxonomy of seven different learning activities, we found that the majority of educators used two types of learning activities most widely, namely assimilative activities (reading, watching videos and listening to audio) and assessment activities. Surprisingly, educators do not choose different activity types based upon function (eg, replace one type of student-activating activity by another), but patterns can be seen where educators combine assimilative, productive and assessment activities or assimilative, finding and handling information and communication tasks. While educators rely heavily on assimilative and assessment activities, no positive correlation was found between any of the seven learning design activity types and student outcomes. Our initial findings suggest that student outcomes are negatively correlated with a high proportion of assimilative activities. Further studies are needed to establish whether particular learning design decisions are related to student outcomes and whether these findings can be replicated in different research settings.

The focus on quality improvements by institutions for better online and blended teaching can be delivered in different ways. This article reports on the implementation of this process and the approaches taken; first, in terms of the design of new learning materials, and second, when reviewing the existing curriculum. The study aims to ascertain whether the combination of a collaborative, networked approach at the initial design stage, augmented with visualisations, has changed the way educators design their courses at The Open University. Analysis of 148 learning designs, show both before and after the introduction of Learning Design, which of the pedagogic decisions that educators made substantially changed. Courses that were designed after the introduction of Learning Design were more focused on the development of a range of skills and included fewer assimilative activities (reading, watching videos and listening to audio). Our findings suggest that by visualising the design upfront, educators focussed less on traditional teaching patterns, such as the "teach, practice, apply" model. Remarkably, just by visualising initial decisions and working in collaborative workshops educators created more student-centred and creative designs aimed to develop a range of skills which support students in both their studies and the workplace. Further studies are needed to establish whether these pedagogic decisions have an impact on student outcomes and whether these findings can be replicated in different institutions.

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