A Mixed Methods Examination of the Integration of Adaptive Courseware into an Online Gateway Course

The purpose of this study was to explore how student behaviors, while using an adaptive courseware system, influenced performance in a gateway biology course. This study used a mixed methods approach. Quantitative data was collected from the course’s learning management system (LMS) and the adaptive courseware. This data was analyzed using correlations between several metrics, including student course average, exam scores, total time spent using the adaptive courseware, the number of times the participants accessed both LMS content and adaptive courseware content, and the average score of activities and assessments within the adaptive courseware. The qualitative data included semi-structured interviews with 21 participants and follow-up interviews with five of the original 21 participants. This data was analyzed using process, descriptive, and in vivo coding.