Distance measure between instructor-recommended and learner's learning pathways

We propose a distance measure between instructor-recommended and learners' learning pathways and discuss how it may be used. The context of this study is a 15-week undergraduate course. The digital learning activities consisted in reading materials, interactive videos, quizzes and worksheets. They allowed the collection of many time-stamped digital traces. The course instructor recommended to engage in the activities regularly and prior to attending weekly synchronous tutorials. However, learning was largely self-regulated. This led to different learning strategies, which were captured and visualised in the form of learning pathways. Several patterns emerged: "regular learners" followed the recommendations; "irregular/selective learners" tended to engage in some activities only and irrespectively of the timing of the tutorials; and "late learners" waited until the end of the course to start engaging. We have formulated a distance measure (D) between the students' and the instructor-recommended learning pathways and found D to be a good indicator of a learner's time management and self-regulation skills. D was also found to have a moderate negative correlation (r = -0.6087) with exam marks, implying that the visualisation of learning pathways combined with a distance measure could be useful to raise students' awareness of their lack of self-regulation skills.