Investigating the effect of prompts on learners' online academic help seeking behaviours utilising the learning analytics

The effective use of self regulation strategies has been considered very important in online learning environments and it is known that learners need to be supported in this context. Academic Help Seeking (AHS), as one of the major self regulated learning strategies, is associated with academic success and prompts are considered as effective tools in supporting AHS strategies. However, researches based on learning analytics in this context seem to be limited. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of prompts on learners' online help seeking behaviours utilising the learning analytics. This research has been carried out in experimental research design. Thirty-nine graduate students were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. Certain tasks for the experimental group were differentiated by adding prompts within the scope of the research. Online AHS behaviours of participants were considered as the dependent variable, and the prompts used to encourage these behaviours were considered as the independent variable. The collected data consist of the self report data in addition to the digital traces which are accepted as proxy indicators of AHS behaviours of participants in the online environment. The findings support that prompts which are inviting students to seek help and providing the help seekers with faster and easier access to help, are effective tools in completing the task successfully. They encourage the effort to complete the task and the use of online help resources. The findings have been discussed on the basis of the literature, suggestions for practice and for further research have also been provided.