Title: The analysis of timeout behaviours in online tests

Authors: Huixiao Le; Jiyou Jia; Lunghei Wong

Addresses: Graduate School of Education, Peking University, 5th Yihe Yuan Road, Hai Dian, Beijing, China ' Graduate School of Education, Peking University, 5th Yihe Yuan Road, Hai Dian, Beijing, China ' Graduate School of Education, Peking University, 5th Yihe Yuan Road, Hai Dian, Beijing, China

Abstract: Based on a dataset of more than 7.4 million records of learners' doing online tests activity in an online platform, and the concept of online learning activity index (OLAI), this paper analyses the timeout behaviours in online tests and attempts to answer the following two questions: what are the characteristics of those online learners with timeout behaviours in online tests? Does the amount of questions in a test influence learners' timeout behaviours? Descriptive statistics, correlation analysis and regression analysis are conducted to find the general pattern underneath the cases. Afterwards, this paper investigates how to optimise the amount of questions in one test in view of the timeout behaviours.

Keywords: online learning; online test; online learning activity index; OLAI; learning analytics; self-handicapping.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2020.106813

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2020 Vol.27 No.3, pp.310 - 323

Received: 20 Oct 2018
Accepted: 18 Mar 2019
Published online: 21 Apr 2020 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article