How Learner Support Services Affect Student Engagement in Online Learning Environments

Learning is challenging, especially in the self-paced online learning environment. Not all the students start online learning with the skills to manage their learning plans, balance work-study, and find learning resources. Therefore, as an online educational institution, providing learner support services are essential to improving learning outcomes and student satisfaction. The existing studies have analyzed the impact of learner support services on student satisfaction, learning outcomes, and course retention. However, the relationship between these services and student engagement in the long-term learning process has not been fully examined. To address this issue, this paper investigates students' usage of two online learner support (OLS) services and their impact on student engagement. We examined four student groups categorized by their usage of two OLS services and analyzed student engagement with an online course using learning log data and visual analytics techniques. The findings indicate that the use of services and how many times the services are used are highly relevant to the pattern and level of student engagement, which suggests that the use of OLS services can be added to the indicators that reflect student learning status.