An Evaluation of How Students Use Blackboard and the Possible Link to Their Grades

Abstract

Blackboard is an important Learning Management System (LMS) employed at most higher education institutions to engage and interact with students during their studies. Students within Material Science and Engineering (MSE) often use these LMS’s to absorb mathematical derivations, scientific information and submit coursework tasks. In this work, statistical analysis of the average times the MSE students spent on Blackboard during their entire Bachelor’s program period were compared to their final examination grades. Results show a positive linear correlation between the time students spent on Blackboard and their final grades. Another interesting observation was the fact that the students engage and interact more with LMS at certain periods within the week rather than performing unintentional activities. Similar to the constructivism learning theory, the results gave evidence to the fact that the more students actively engage with the LMS’s, the more they construct knowledge for themselves.