The Relationship Between Online Participation and Academic Achievements for Students Majoring in Business English

GUO Yan-lin

The quantitative method here was applied to study the correlation between online participation and academic achievement. The online participation in this study was represented by the frequency with which students raise their hands in four business English reading classes over a single semester， while academic achievements were measured by the scores of the students in the final examination. The results showed a moderate positive correlation in two of the four classes of students between their online participation and scores on class level. Otherwise， there was no correlation in the other two classes. Since there was no strong correlation between online participation and comprehensive performance in this study， it can be inferred that online participation may not likely cause better comprehensive performance in the final examination.

Keywords： online participation， comprehensive performance， online course

Introduction

Affected by COVID-19， many universities and schools offered courses completely online， which posed significant challenges for teachers and students. Understanding how to aid students to learn effectively in online courses has attracted wide attention as a research area. John Dewey （William， 2017） was a constructivist who emphasized the idea of putting students at the center of learning， claiming that education and learning are social and interactive processes. Further， he believed that students should thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum and that all students should have the opportunity to take part in their own learning. According to Watson （1913） in Psychology as the Behaviorist Views It， learning is positively strengthened in the process of stimulation and response. Barba， Kennedy， and Ainley （2016） also found that online participation is the strongest indicator of students’ performance among students who persisted to finish MOOC courses. Additionally， Kizilcec Piech， and Schneider （2013） stated that students perform better when they participate more in classroom activities.

Participation can be active or negative. The former is vital in learning as it reflects the students’ active thinking process and their cognitive attendance to the class. In a study put out by Davies and Graff （2005）， findings suggested that students who failed the courses often interacted less frequently. Active online participation can be achieved through various means， such as clicking the button to ask or answer questions， reminding the teacher about the coursework and PPT， and so on. Therefore， only active online participation will be discussed in this study.

Online courses are different from the traditional classroom in that the teacher and the students are separated. The increase in distance weakens the students’ experience of learning in the community. Problems such as poor concentration， procrastination， and lack of motivation are likely to occur. Therefore， we can assume that active online participation plays a significant role in students’ learning efficiency.

However， some studies show that higher participation does not necessarily have better effects on students’comprehensive performance. For example， Zhang （2016） reported that only when the frequency of participation lies within a certain range can students benefit from it.

A few reasons can be used to explain the discrepancies between the findings. Firstly， some studies overlooked the effect of the environment， such as in the classroom where the members trust and depend on each other as well as share common goals and values （Rovai， 2002）. Secondly， some didn’t consider student characteristics and learning habits. Thirdly， some studies didn’t distinguish between active and passive interactions.

Therefore， to fill this gap， a study needs to be carried out to determine whether active online participation has a strong positive impact on students’ learning as measured by their final scores obtained in the final examination.

Method

Participants

The one-semester study involved 122 participants from 4 different classes in the same grade. All participants were taught by the same teacher in business English reading classes. All were enrolled as full-time students.

Procedure

The business English reading classes were given on the Tencent Classroom Platform for a whole semester during the pandemic lockdown. The “Raise Hand” function on the platform was used to document how many times the students participated， while the final examination was used to measure their performance in the class.

Data Analysis

Many studies demonstrate that online participation is a main influential factor in student grades. Thus， this study was carried out to investigate the relationship between them. First and foremost， we put forth hypothesis H0： There is a significant positive correlation between online participation and scores in the final examination. Then， the Pearson correlation coefficient r is used to test the correlations between the two. The range for r is between [-1， 1]. The closer |r| is to 1， the stronger the relationship between the two variables is. A number 0.6≤|r| indicates a strong correlation， while 0.4≤|r<0.6 indicates a moderate correlation and 0.2≤|r|<0.4 represents a weak correlation. The variables are basically unrelated when 0≤|r|<0.2.

Discussion

The study was carried out to investigate whether there is a significant positive correlation between students’active online participation （X） and their final scores （Y）. Firstly， the correlation between X and Y was calculated at the class level. Then， the data stratification method was applied， and the number of students’ classroom participation and final scores from high to low respectively were ranked and stratified by the scores of 30 or 31 people per group.

When the correlation of the two variables in each class was calculated， two of the four classes showed positive moderate relations between students’ active participation and their scores （0.4≤|r|<0.6）， whilst the other two classes demonstrated weak relations （|r|<0.4）， as shown in Table 1. Even though there is not a significant positive correlation between those two classes， positive correlation exists to some extent， which is shown in the other two classes.

Conversely， when grouping students in terms of their online participation from high to low and investigating the correlation between the X and Y variables as shown in Table 2， no positive relationship was found between the two variables in all the groups （|r|<0.2）.

It was especially true for the group with the highest online participation counts （|r|<0.02）. The data collected also shows that students varied significantly in terms of online participation counts， regardless of their grades.

Similarly， when grouping students in terms of their final grades from high to low， as shown in Table 3， and investigated the correlation between the X and Y variables， no relation between the two variables was present when examining them inside each group （|r|<0.22）， which also disproved the hypothesis.

When calculating the standard deviation （SD） of the online participation in each group， high SD Values were present in all groups， especially in the groups with medium and medium-high scores. This means that the online participation counts of students in each group were spread out over a wider range of numbers.

Compared with C2 and C3， C1 and C4 had lower standard deviations， meaning that online participation counts are more clustered around the mean in these groups. Thus， it can be inferred that most of the students with higher scores tended to participate more and the students with lower scores tended to join much less frequently.

The data can be interpreted as demonstrating that there is not a significant positive correlation between online participation and grades. However， the results investigated R class level showed a stronger correlation compared to those that were not. Thus， it can be inferred that some factors inside the classroom may influence the results.

Conclusion

A significant conclusion of this study is that high online participation counts did not necessarily indicate a good comprehensive result. However， there is a moderate positive relationship between two of the four classes at the class level. Otherwise， no correlations between them exist. It is firmly believed that online participation will have a positive impact on students’ grades inside certain communities （in this case， classrooms）. Further， online participation can be a relief to introverted students and has an influence on students’ motivation. In the future， qualitative studies should be carried out to research internal community （classroom） factors， such as the quality of interactions between teacher and students， student and other students， learning atmosphere， students’characteristics， learning habits， and so on.

References

Davies， J.， & Graff， M. （2005）. Performance in e‐learning： Online participation and student grades. British Journal of Educational Technology， 36（4）， 657-663.

Barba， P. G.， Kennedy， G. E.， & Ainley， M. D. （2016）. The role of students’ motivation and participation in predicting performance in a MOOC. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning， 32（3）， 218-231.

Kizilcec， R. F.， Piech， C.， & Schneider， E. （2013， April）. Deconstructing disengagement： analyzing learner subpopulations in massive open online courses. In Proceedings of the third international conference on learning analytics and knowledge （pp. 170-179）.

Rovai， A. P. （2002）. Sense of community， perceived cognitive learning， and persistence in asynchronous learning networks. The Internet and Higher Education， 5（4）， 319-332.

Watson， J. B. （1913）. Psychology as the behaviorist views it. Psychological review， 20（2）， 158.

Williams， M. K. （2017）. John Dewey in the 21st century. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education， 9（1）， 7.

Zhang， X. M. （2017）. Research on the relationship between classroom teacher—Student interaction and students’ academic achievements. Contemporary Educational Sciences， 000（006）， 65-69.