Relationship between Student Engagement and Performance in e-Learning Environment Using Association Rules

The field of e-learning has emerged as a topic of interest in academia due to the increased ease of accessing the Internet using using smart-phones and wireless devices. One of the challenges facing e-learning platforms is how to keep students motivated and engaged. Moreover, it is also crucial to identify the students that might need help in order to make sure their academic performance doesn't suffer. To that end, this paper tries to investigate the relationship between student engagement and their academic performance. Apriori association rules algorithm is used to derive a set of rules that relate student engagement to academic performance. Experimental results' analysis done using confidence and lift metrics show that a positive correlation exists between students' engagement level and their academic performance in a blended e-learning environment. In particular, it is shown that higher engagement often leads to better academic performance. This cements the previous work that linked engagement and academic performance in traditional classrooms.