Impact of Learner's Characteristics and Learning Behaviour on Learning Performance during a Fully Online Course

A fully online learning environment requires effective learning management in order to promote pro-active education. Since student’s notes are a reflection of the progress of their education, analysis of notes taken can be used to track the learning process of students who participate in fully online courses. This paper presents the causal relationships between student’s characteristics, note-taking behaviour, learning experience, note assessment and test scores while the relationships between these metrics is examined. A fully online course for undergraduate students in Economics was conducted. Participants were asked to study each course module and present their notes to the lecturer every week. The student’s learning performance was then measured using online tests, weekly confirmation tests, and a final exam. The total number of valid participants in the courses was 53. Three factors of note-taking behaviour were extracted according to the survey, and their relationships with other metrics were calculated. A structural equation modeling technique was used to track student’s learning activity as note-taking occurred, using the scores of their metrics. The results of this modeling technique suggest that key factors and their contributions to test scores can be measured. Also, the factors which contribute to note-taking behaviour were examined.