Monitoring student engagement and progress in Moodle
An overview of the tools and functions in Moodle that can be used to monitor students’ engagement and progress as they complete a course’s resources and activities.
15 November 2021
Last updated: 30 November 2021
This toolkitoutlinesthetools and functionsin Moodle that canbe usedto monitor students’ engagement with a course’s resources and activities.
It complements theToolkitEncouraging student engagement with blended and online learningwhich sets outpedagogical strategies to encourage and sustain engagement. The tools outlined below allowenrolled tutors and course administratorsto monitor whether these student engagement strategies are having the desired effect(s).
The toolkitalso outlinesways to enable students to monitor and reviewtheir own progress and engagement withMoodle activities and resources.
This toolkit introduces waysmonitorstudents’ progress and quickly identify students who may be falling behind or over-engaging.It willhelpyouset up a Moodle coursein a way that enables you to answer the following questions:
- WhatMoodleresources are students accessing or finding useful?
- What is the frequency of access and how much time may students be spending oneachitem/task?
- What areas do students seem to struggle with?
- Which individuals appear to be disengaged?
- Has an intervention to engage studentsbeen successful?
This toolkit is most useful when you are preparing a Moodle course for a new cohort; this allows you to set up monitoring tools in time to capture students’ engagement data from their first time accessing the course.
What we mean by 'engagement' and 'progress'
In the context of teaching and learning, ‘engagement’ can be broadly defined as a set of positive student behaviours. These include:
- attention to and completion ofwork;
- active involvement in assigned work; and
- similar involvement in their interactions with peers, the teaching team and the wider university community.
By‘progress’, we meanthe sequence of tasks a student does, or engages with, as theymovethrougha course over time.'Progress’ alsorefers to what a student may accomplish while on this learning journey, namely:
- Evidence of improvement,
- Key performance indicators awarded (such as scores),
- Intended learning outcomes and objectives.
There is significant overlapand interaction betweenboth termsin this context.For example, a student could be viewed as having ‘engaged’ with a resource on a Moodle course if there is evidence that they opened it. But it is not possible to know if their knowledge and/or understanding ‘progressed’ as a result of opening this resource without successfully engaging the student in an activity designed to evaluate the student’s learning regarding this resource.
How toidentify student engagement and progress
We suggestthatyou ‘design in’ specific activitiesat various parts of the modulewhere you can gather engagement data from your cohort. These should be part of the student journey but can act as an additional ‘temperature check’ to ensure students are participating.
The Moodle tools and functions listed below may flag issues early on, giving more time to implement interventions that could help strugglingstudents,result in better learning outcomes orimprovestudent evaluationsetc. Bear in mind that any suchinterventions take time and mayneedadditional preparation (e.g. new sessions or resources).
Interpreting the data
For each of the monitoring tools described below, we include a notice of caution: itisnot always easy to interpret engagement data.For example,
- What does it mean when students revisit a resource or activity frequently? Is it useful or confusing?
- Why do some individual students appear to spend excess amounts of time engaging with a particular aspect of course?
- What does it mean when students just don’t engage with important parts at all, or rarely?
The data is most useful as one data point in a broader, ongoing conversation we recommend you have with your students about how interesting, relevant and challenging they are finding your Moodle materials and activities.
Tools for monitoring
Click on a Moodle tool below to find out more about what it activity it monitors, how it works and tips on interpreting the data it produces.
- 'Activity Completion', 'Restrict Access' and 'Course Completion' tools
What do they monitor?
Staffcan:
- Easily get a sense of the extent to which individual, or cohorts of students are engaging with certain items on their course and hence with the module overall.
- Control students’ access to specific items based on tutor set criteria, such as a date orcompletion or engagement with another task.
Studentscan:
- gaina sense of the 'volume' of the course, how much they have completed, and how much is left to go.
- takeownership of the courseby checking off items as they progress through the course.
How do they work?
- Staff configure the course to display a checkbox beside each selected resource and activity.
- Students can tick a checkbox to indicate task completion or engagement. Conditions can be set so that the activity is automatically 'ticked' as completed once the student has fulfilled therequirements (e.g. creating a forum post and replying to two others; opening an article; responding to a question).'
- Students can see a report listingtheirticked/completed and remaining tasks onthecourse.
- Staff can see a report listing enrolled students and the resources and activities they have ticked/completed.
- Staff canalsorestrict students’ access to resources and activities in-line with pre-set criteria.
Interpreting the data
Although these toolscan identifystudents whomayseem nottobeengagingwithcertain resources or activities,or who may be ‘gaming’ the system e.g. byticking tasks well in advance of them being covered,the simpleon its owncannotconfirmthatspecific students aredefinitelydisengagedorexplainthe reasons behind any such disengagement. They should be viewed as a data point to start or facilitate an individual or group discussion with your student(s).You could build on the data by using:
- individual emails, e.g. using.
- aquick ‘temperature check’ surveyof some or all of the cohort usingthetool .
- a conversation in classora forum thatfacilitatedanonymous posts may beappropriate.(See:>How do I…?).
It is important to be transparent inthe use of learning analytics of this kind. Let students know at the outset that youcan seewhether or not itemshavebeen ticked.Some students may therefore optnot to use this systembut this should not be taken as evidence ofdisengagement.
User guides
- 'Checklist' tool
What does itmonitor?
- Checklists can prompt students of things to door include when preparing for an actionor piece of work e.g. a placement, seeking ethical approval, fieldwork, an assessment etc.
- Increases likelihood of studentscompletinglisted items.
- Staff can see what items individual students have ticked and/or added.
How does it work?
- Staff can add Checklists to a course in which students can tick off listed items.
- Checklists can be configured so students can add their own items. Useful for research modules, or spaces in which a sense of student ownership is beneficial.
- The report displaysa table listingallthe studentsenrolled on a coursein thefirstcolumn,andall the items on the 'Checklist' presented as column headingsacross thefirstrow.
Interpreting the data
This toolallows staffmore granularoversightofindividual students. Staff caninstantlyseehowtheirclass is progressing withitems onthe Checklist.(See thesection in theChecklistmini guide).However, students can choosewhetherto usethistooland to what extent so material evidence of engagementwith an itemlisted inthe Checklist,e.g.,an assignment submission,oraforum post, may be a more reliable barometer of engagement with that action.
User guide
- 'Group choice' tool
What does it monitor?
- Gives students the freedom to choose a group andthepotentialto switch groups. Thiscan provide an opportunity to see if students are sufficiently engaged to join a group and consequently to engage in group activities.
- Groups don’t have to be just for formal group work or projects. They could have a social aspect e.g. for encouraging students to form mutually supportive study groups.
How does it work?
- Staff can create empty groups and students can choose which one they want to join.
- Staff can set limits on the number of students who can join each group.
- Access to activities and resources can be restricted by group membership.
Interpreting the data
Any responseindicatesa degree of engagement on the part of respondents.However, youmay be able toread more intostudents’group choiceor changes to their choicebased on your knowledgeof thestudents.
Where studentshave notjoined a group it possible toprompt themvia individual emails (N.B.could be used to do this).
User guide
- 'Hot question' tool
What does it monitor?
- It allows students to actively engage in class-widediscussionsby asking questions or making comments anonymously.
How does it work?
- When staffaddaHot Questionsactivityto their course(s),students can contribute questions/topics and/or vote for their peers’ contribution(s).
- The more votes a question gets the ‘hotter’ it becomes and the higher it rises in the list.
Interpreting the data
You can clearly see what students want to knowor what they thinkby the questions or thoughts they postin theHot Questiontool. In addition, students can get an ideaof how manyof their peers would like to know the answers to thesequestions orconcurwith their comments from thenumber ofvotesthey get.
Whereas anonymouspostsmay deny staff the information they need toreach out to individual students,facilitatinganonymous engagement mayincrease participation byreticentstudents.
User guide
- 'Feedback' tool
What does it monitor?
You can take occasional “temperature checks” throughout your module, including on how students rate their own engagement with the course.
How does it work?
Staff create a feedback survey on their course with questions that they create. (N.B. This tool is not typically used for centrally managed module evaluations. SeeOnline Student Evaluation QuestionnairesandHarmonising module evaluationfor more on Student Module Evaluations).
Interpreting the data
Staff can seebothindividual responses in detail,anda graphical (and text)display ofaggregatedresponses.
Engagement can be gauged both by the number of respondents as well asbythe responses given.Theeffectiveness of this toolforunderstanding the why’s and whereforesof students’ engagementalong a particular learning journeyisthereforelargelydependenton thequestions composed.
User guide
- 'Choice' tool
What does it monitor?
- Can be used to ask students subject related or administrative questions.E.g.Rather asking students to reply by email to a question with pre-set responses, ask student to complete a Choice poll.
- Easier for students to click on a link and select a response in a Choice, than to write an email response.
- Staff don’t have to collate email responses and figure out who has yet to reply.
How does it work?
- Staff can pose a question or poll (in the form of an MCQ) and students can select one or more of the choices or options given.
- Staff can configure the Choice tool in a variety of ways. Including ones that determine whether staff and/or students can see the identities of participants.
Interpreting the data
Interpreting the data generated bythetool depends on how ithas beenused or the question students have been asked to answer. For example,if may be used:
- asa quick poll to stimulate thinking about a topic;
- tofacilitatestudent decision-making, for example allowing students to vote on a direction for the course; or
- to quickly test students' understanding.
In these cases,any responseindicatesa degree of engagement on the part of respondents.However, the author of the poll may be able to further evaluate the‘quality’ofstudents’engagementby their specific choice(s).
Where studentshave notparticipateditispossible to prompt them via individual emails (N.B.could be used to do this). Orperhaps aaquick ‘temperature check’ survey of these students, could be done using thetool, tosensitivelyexplore their lack of engagement. In some cases, a conversation in class or a forum thatfacilitatedanonymous posts may beappropriate. (See:>How do I…?).
User guide
- 'Moodle Reports' tool
What does it monitor?
By regularly reviewingMoodle Reports you can:
- gauge the relative popularity of resources
- see the pattern of student usage
- get asenseofhow andwhenstudentsengage across the course.
How does it work?
Most usefulreports for this purpose:Live Logs,Activity ReportsandCourse participation.See С̳ Moodle wiki for information on how to access and use.
Logs–areuseful fordisplayinglistsof all the actionsone/allstudent(s)haveundertakeninthiscoursewithinthe past year.They are often used to seeifor whenstudentssubmittedworkor engaged with an activity or resource.Activityreports–showtheitemsinacourse on a single page, sorted by topic/week number. Each item in the report displays withthe:
- number oftimesit has been viewed,
- number ofviewers,
- date and time itwas last accessed,
- number of days and hours since last access.
Courseparticipation reports–will show all actions forselectedactivities and resources on your course.
Interpreting the data
Although these tools can readily identify students who maybe recorded as having viewedresources or activities, thesesimplereports maynotontheirownconveyhow‘meaningful’thatstudent’sengagement was. As in the case of 'Acitivity Completion' data, they should be viewed as a starting point tofacilitate an individual or group discussion with your student(s) about their level of engagement.
In the interests of transparency, it is important to let students know at the outset that you can viewthese engagementmonitoringtools.
User guide
Further help
- Contactany of your education support named contacts for advice ondesigning, structuring and delivering your course, etc.:
- Your Faculty Learning Technology Lead (FLTL)
- Your Department’s Learning Technologist
- Your School’s Digital Education Advisor (DEA)
- Useful С̳ resources include:
- TheConnected Learning Baseline: module leaders should consult andalign your course(s) with it.
- ABC Learning Design high-speedworkshop thatresults in a collaborative course/programme design. Check for upcoming events.
- Encouraging student engagement with blended and online learning[Teaching Toolkit]
- Click to viewreferences and furtherreading
Ahern, S. (2020)Moodle: How do students use yours?[online]. Available from: (Accessed 23 August 2021).
Centerfor Teaching, Vanderbilt University (n.d.)Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)[online]. Available from: (Accessed 23 August 2021).
Digital Education С̳ (2021)С̳ Connected Learning Baseline[online]. Available from: /teaching-learning/publications/2021/sep/ucl-connected-learning-baseline (Accessed 23 August 2021