Formative Assessment Tasks as Indicators of Student Engagement for Predicting At-risk Students in Programming Courses

Previous studies have proposed many indicators to assess the effect of student engagement in learning and academic achievement but have not yet been clearly articulated. In addition, while student engagement tracking systems have been designed, they rely on the log data but not on performance data. This paper presents results of a non-machine learning model developed using ongoing formative assessment scores as indicators of student engagement. Visualisation of the classification tree results is employed as student engagement indicators for instructors to observe and intervene with students. The results of this study showed that ongoing assessment is related to student engagement and subsequent final programming exam performance and possible to identify students at-risk of failing the final exam. Finally, our study identified students impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. These were students who attended the final programming exam in the semester 2019–2020 and who scored well in formative assessments. Based on these results we present a simple student engagement indicator and its potential application as a student progress monitor for early identification of students at risk.