PeerLA - Assistant for individual learning goals and self-regulation competency improvement in online learning scenarios

While online learning is already a part of university education and didactics, not all students have the necessary self regulation competency to really learn on their own efficiently and effectively. In classroom a teacher can take over a moderating part, set intermediate goals and give feedback to one's progress, but participants of online learning courses (e.g. in blended scenarios or Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)) face a higher demand of self-regulation competency. This paper presents a course and content independent assistant, PeerLA, which assists in improving self-regulation competency. PeerLA allows setting of long-term goals, breakdown into intermediate goals and keeps track of knowledge increase or time needed. A graphical feedback allows comparison of existing and aimed level of knowledge or time investments. PeerLA adds peer comparison to the visualization charts for social frame of reference. This comparison is course-wide or only with similar learners (close in goals and knowledge levels). PeerLA is implemented as a Learning Management System (LMS) plugin to support learning progress in mixed formal and informal learning scenarios. PeerLA was evaluated with 83 students in an online mathematics preparation course over four weeks. Results indicate the benefits of such a self-regulation assistance, especially for university freshmen.