Understanding student learning pathways in traditional online history courses: utilizing process mining analysis on clickstream data

Purpose This study explores ongoing research into self-mapped learning pathways that students utilize to move through a course when given two modalities to choose from: one that is instructor-led and one that is student-directed. Design/methodology/approach Process mining analysis was utilized to examine and cluster clickstream data from an online college-level History course designed with dual modality choices. This paper examines some of the results from different approaches to clustering the available data. Findings By examining how often students interacted with others, whether they were more internal or external facing with their pathway choices, and whether or not they completed a learning pathway, this study identified five general tactics from the data: Individualistic Internal; Non-completing Internal; Completing, Interactive Internal; Completing, Interactive, and Reflective and Completing External. Further analysis of when students used each tactic led to the identification of four different strategies that learners utilized during class sessions. Practical implications The results of this analysis could potentially lead to the creation of customizable design models that can assist learners as they navigate modality choices in learner-centered or less-structured learning design methodologies. Originality/value Few courses are designed to give the learners the options to follow the instructor or create their own learning pathway. Knowing how to identify what choices a learner might take in these scenarios is even less explored. Preliminary data for this paper was originally presented as a poster session at the Learning Analytics and Knowledge conference in 2019.