As universities offer more flexible delivery options there are parallel concerns about increasing levels of engagement. Withdrawal and disconnection from study is most common during the first year of university as students experience social, cultural and financial adjustments and attempt to understand the nuances of academic learning. This article reports on the impact of a technology-enabled support system delivering timely, personalised and actionable feedback on online activity and support emails at critical periods in two courses. Learning analytics data was used to identify appropriate engagement metrics for personalising feedback to students with results indicating an improvement in course grades. While the learning analytics approach provides a technology-mediated means for scaling personalised feedback and communicating with large cohorts of learners, the qualitative results indicated that students felt they were noticed as individual learners, were more willing to contact educators for support, and more motivated to engage with the online course learning materials.
Self-regulated learning (SRL) is associated with university student academic success outcomes, however students often need support to develop these skills. Technology-mediated feedback is one strategy that may aid educators in supporting students’ SRL development. This study aims to explore whether a technology-mediated feedback strategy targeting tutorial preparation for flipped classrooms enhances first-year students’ self-report SRL and observed implementation of the strategy. Self-report SRL was measured using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ); strategy implementation profiles were based on lecture video access patterns. First-year psychology students (n = 99) were sent technology-mediated feedback emails aimed at developing their SRL. Paired-samples t-tests revealed significant increases in post-intervention self-reported motivational SRL subscales; self-reported and observed learning strategies implementation did not improve. Future research could build upon this exploratory work to form a multi-pronged strategy to increase understanding of the role of technology-mediated feedback in first-year students’ SRL development for flipped classroom learning.
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