Online access patterns and students' performance

The paper follows accessing patterns of five cohorts of postgraduate students enrolled in a core unit within a master of business administration (MBA)program. The unit is designed to provide numerous opportunities for student participation in Discussion Boards using Blackboard technology. Discussion Boards create numerous opportunities for interaction amongst online learners to share and exchange their experiences, creating a sense of a virtual community. Relationships between accessing patterns for each week of the semester for each student are explored in relation to their performance using course statistics generated by the Blackboard technology. Close examination of the significant differences in access patterns to the course window and its components of communication, content, and student areas reveal middle of the semester (week 7)as the common critical point that differentiates high achieving students from low achieving students. Identifying critical points provides the faculty staff member an opportunity to introduce intervention strategies in order to improve the learning experience of all the students.