DigiEfekt study: Opiq interaction

Abstract

Opiq data is part of the DigiEfect project (DIGIVARA) dataset. It consists data file (DigiEfekt_Opiq.xlsx) with a codebook on sheet 2 and Digiefekt's main study final theme report. E-Books have quickly turned from a trendy and curious novelty into an effective educational tool that is widely used in Estonian basic schools. All of Estonia’s 500+ schools had used Opiq until the study year 2021/2022– «an interactive digital learning materials platform that replaces all the old-school workbooks». Given the popularity of the E-Book as a pedagogical tool, several questions immediately arise: are E-Books really that effective in education? How much do modern E-Books differ from their printed analogues, and what is the difference? What behavioural patterns of interaction with E-Books exist? The topic of the effectiveness of the use of electronic workbooks in education has remained relevant in the scientific literature over the past decade. E-Books can ease obtaining educational materials (Yaya, 2015); also help students understand learning materials «more systematically» (Noor, Embong & Ridhuan, 2012); E-Books can enhance students’ access to information and also help «revolutionize the processes of reading, analyzing information» (Blummer & Kenton, 2020). A study by MacNish et al. (2017) confirms the effectiveness of the use of E-Books in conditions of problem-based learning; a significant increase in student curiosity in Science courses when using interactive multimedia E-Books (Herianto et al., 2022). However, as Ogata (2015) mentioned, most studies dedicated to E-book-based learning pay little attention to analysing the e-book data logs. However, it is imperative to investigate how these logs can be used to improve E-Books content and the quality of learning and education. The use of classical data analysis methods in this field may not be sufficient (Cerezo et al., 2020). Therefore, sequence analysis and process mining were used to study clusters of students based on their behavioural patterns of interaction with Opiq and identify effective strategies for interacting with the E-Book.