Help-seeking in an online maths environment
Help-seeking in an online maths environment
Many online mathematics environments provide feedback to help students make progress. However, the extent to which students make use of such feedback, so-called ‘help-seeking’, depends on numerous instructional variables, including the design of the online platform and individual student characteristics. Furthermore, student activities in such platforms are not independent events: the order in which tasks are completed matters, and the order says something about students’ help-seeking behaviour. To gain insights, we have to study sequences of events. This study used student data from UK students in primary schools with at least 100 lesson records in the academic year ’18-’19 (N=1,799), totalling more than a million records from an online mathematics platform. Sequence analysis was applied to the data to uncover patterns of help-seeking. The results showed that help-seeking, task difficulty and proficiency interact. Well-tailored help is subject to a Goldilocks ‘sweet spot’: help-seeking does not contribute to precision if the learning content is too difficult or the student too proficient. Help is not needed if the learning content is too easy, while help-seeking is not productive if a student is not proficient enough yet. The findings have implications for instructional design and show how sequence analysis can provide useful insights of students’ behaviour in an online mathematics environment.
Bokhove, Christian
7fc17e5b-9a94-48f3-a387-2ccf60d2d5d8
2 November 2024
Bokhove, Christian
7fc17e5b-9a94-48f3-a387-2ccf60d2d5d8
Bokhove, Christian
(2024)
Help-seeking in an online maths environment.
Conference of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics (BSRLM): Day conference Southampton, , Southampton, United Kingdom.
02 Nov 2024.
Record type:
Conference or Workshop Item
(Other)
Abstract
Many online mathematics environments provide feedback to help students make progress. However, the extent to which students make use of such feedback, so-called ‘help-seeking’, depends on numerous instructional variables, including the design of the online platform and individual student characteristics. Furthermore, student activities in such platforms are not independent events: the order in which tasks are completed matters, and the order says something about students’ help-seeking behaviour. To gain insights, we have to study sequences of events. This study used student data from UK students in primary schools with at least 100 lesson records in the academic year ’18-’19 (N=1,799), totalling more than a million records from an online mathematics platform. Sequence analysis was applied to the data to uncover patterns of help-seeking. The results showed that help-seeking, task difficulty and proficiency interact. Well-tailored help is subject to a Goldilocks ‘sweet spot’: help-seeking does not contribute to precision if the learning content is too difficult or the student too proficient. Help is not needed if the learning content is too easy, while help-seeking is not productive if a student is not proficient enough yet. The findings have implications for instructional design and show how sequence analysis can provide useful insights of students’ behaviour in an online mathematics environment.
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Published date: 2 November 2024
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Conference of the British Society for Research into Learning Mathematics (BSRLM): Day conference Southampton, , Southampton, United Kingdom, 2024-11-02 - 2024-11-02
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Local EPrints ID: 495861
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/495861
PURE UUID: d726949a-4ccd-4cf2-b855-f8cb9d269267
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Date deposited: 26 Nov 2024 17:39
Last modified: 27 Nov 2024 02:44
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