Study Habits and Examination Performance in an Online Learning Microeconomics Course

Abstract

In light of the increased prevalence of online courses and web-based instruction offered in traditional courses, it is imperative to understand determinants of college students’ academic achievement under the online instruction. Using a unique panel data collected from a university’s e-learning server, this paper examines students’ online study patterns and how study habits affect their learning outcomes. We find that many students enrolling in the sampled online microeconomics course finished viewing online course materials right before examinations, rather than spreading study time evenly over the semester. The estimation results also show that study habits are significantly correlated with students’ examination performance.