The greater the online participation, the better the learning achievement? A study of integrating Moodle into learning

This study aimed to explore the relationship between students’ online participation in Moodle and their learning achievement. Participants in the study were 78 undergraduate full-time students who were enrolled in a general education course entitled “Digital Citizenship” at a higher education institute in Hong Kong. They were given opportunities to choose and participate in different types of Moodle activities including information access (e.g., reading online resources), interactive learning (e.g., running online simulations), networked learning (e.g., discussing in online forums), and materials development (e.g., writing reflective journals). The online participation of a participant was measured by the number of online activities the individual completed, while the learning achievement of a participant was determined by the essay grade the individual attained. This study applied the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method to the collected data in order to identify whether there was a link between online participation and learning achievement. The results indicate that online participation in networked learning or in materials development, but not in information access nor in interactive learning, was positively and significantly related to learning achievement. This finding highlights the importance of social interaction and individual constructivism for effective online learning.