Impact of Study Groups on Students' Learning and Engagement: Across Different Online Formats of a Web-development Course

With the rise in enrollment in computing programs, online learning offers the flexibility to scale up enrollment. To help students succeed in an online course, evidence-based engagement strategies need to be incorporated and evaluated for their effectiveness in increasing student engagement, which is a key determinant of student learning outcomes. This also addresses a concern with online learning, where students often feel detached and disengaged. In this innovative practice full paper, we describe our implementation of a study group strategy that we employed to increase students' engagement across different online formats of an upper-level computing course. Study groups are intended to allow students to discuss course concepts, foster social-emotional engagement, and provide positive learning experiences rather than being dependent on group members to complete a task or receive a grade. Although the strategy has been implemented in face-to-face computing courses, it has not been implemented and evaluated in different online formats of a computing course. The primary contribution of this study is the empirical evidence of the impact of study groups on students' learning outcome and engagement across the online formats of the course. The context of this study is an upper-level web-development course offered in different online formats, including online asynchronous in Spring 2020, online asynchronous and online hybrid in Fall 2020, and online synchronous in Spring 2021, where the study group strategy was employed. Three semesters of data collection were conducted using questionnaires administered at the beginning and end of the courses. Students learning outcomes and engagement were not significantly different between the different online course formats, allowing us to compare across the courses. Findings indicate that a study group strategy has a positive relationship with participation engagement in all of the online course formats. However, study groups may not directly influence learning outcomes. A study group strategy may improve learning outcomes in an online environment if the instructor facilitates the study group's work. This study has implications for utilizing study groups in different online formats of upper-level computing courses.