Drawing on network behavior literature, this research examines how business students' extra-classroom social network behavior for learning with peers (i.e., horizontal network behavior) and with the instructor (i.e., vertical network behavior) influences their learning, which in turn affects their grade performance. It also investigates the…

Researchers and practitioners from different disciplines (e.g., educational science, computer science, statistics) continuously enter the rapidly developing research field of learning analytics (LA) and bring along different perspectives and experiences in research design and methodology. Scientific communities share common problems, concepts,…

This paper proposes a multilayered methodology for analyzing distance learning students' data to gain insight into the learning progress of the student subjects both in an individual basis and as members of a learning community during the course taking process. The communication aspect is of high importance in educational research. Additionally,…

This research aimed to explore (1) the characteristics and patterns of student interactions on online discussion boards throughout a course using social network analysis (SNA) and (2) the mediating effect of social presence, as the underlying mechanism, on the relationship between these interactions and students' learning outcomes. Eighty-four…

This dissertation examines the interaction patterns that happen in an online learning environment. While many studies look at online learning through the lens of the learner or the learning environment, few studies look at the interaction patterns that happen through the digital traces captured by computational tools. Based on the conceptual…

How do people acquire knowledge about which individuals belong to different cliques or communities? And to what extent does this learning process differ from the process of learning higher-order information about complex associations between nonsocial bits of information? Here, the authors use a paradigm in which the order of stimulus presentation…

Learning analytics (LA) constitutes a key opportunity to support learning design (LD) in blended learning environments. However, details as to how LA supports LD in practice and information on teacher experiences with LA are limited. This study explores the potential of LA to inform LD based on a one-semester undergraduate blended learning course…

Although learner interactions in forums are well-documented, research on instructor engagement strategies in MOOC forums and their impact on forum dynamics is limited. This study offers a distinctive approach by categorizing instructor strategies into four types: communicative, integrative, task-oriented, and non-interventionist. Six prominent…

This study combines research methods from student approaches to learning research and social network analysis (SNA) to examine patterns of students' collaborative learning based on their learning orientations amongst 193 postgraduates enrolled in a blended course. The study identified two distinct learning orientations, namely 'understanding' and…

Humans have always been lured by the idea that they can use data to understand a phenomenon and make predictions about it. Learning analytics, in this sense, promise to understand and optimize learning and the environments in which it occurs by collecting data from learners and learning contexts. In this regard, this study systematically examines…

In the last few years, social learning, i.e., learning based on the analysis and discussion of topics by means of social collaborative systems, mainly social network services such as Facebook or Twitter, has acquired a great importance and led many instructors and institutions to deploy courses that include activities to be performed in them. For…

Increased levels of internationalization have led to individuals working in multicultural organizations, a trend that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. To navigate these environments successfully, more emphasis is being placed on the importance of higher education in preparing and arming the future workforce with the international…

Social Learning Analytics (SLA) seeks to obtain hidden information in large amounts of data, usually of an educational nature. SLA focuses mainly on the analysis of social networks (Social Network Analysis, SNA) and the Web, to discover patterns of interaction and behavior of educational social actors. This paper incorporates the SLA in a smart…

Social network analysis (SNA) examines the relationships that an individual speaker creates and maintains with others in order to explain and predict language behavior. Over the past 20 years, SNA has been used by a growing number of researchers to better understand the language learner and the language learning process, especially in the context…

This paper addresses the potential of online environments as spaces for young people to develop intercultural competences by studying how otherness is created online and how this holds potential for learning. While online communication is an increasing part of young peoples' lives, not much is known about how young people use their online social…