Monitoring students’ self-regulation as a basis for an early warning system

Abstract

Among the elements that determine a student’s academic success, their ability to regulate their own learning processes is an important, yet typically underrated factor. It is possible for students to improve their self-regulated learning skills, even at university levels. However, they are often unaware of their own behavior. Moreover, instructors are usually not prepared to assess students’ self-regulation. This paper presents a learning analytics solution which focuses on rating selfregulation skills, separated in several different categories, using activity and performance data from a LMS, as well as self-reported student data via questionnaires. It is implemented as an early warning system, offering the possibility of detecting students whose poor SRL profile puts them at risk of academic underperformance. As of the date of this writing, this is still a work in progress, and is being tested in the context of a first year college engineering course.