Engagement and Demographics in an Online General Education Course in Biomedical Engineering

Abstract

Many universities have general education requirements. However, Biomedical Engineering departments rarely offer courses to fulfill this requirement. No published benchmarks exist for engagement and demographics for a general education course in Biomedical Engineering. This paper characterizes an online general education course in Biomedical Engineering. Engagement was measured by monitoring the viewing and reading patterns of students. All instructional videos were delivered through the YuJa platform, which records how often each segment of each video is viewed. Readings were assigned through the Perusall platform, which records how long each student viewed each page of an assigned reading. The demographics of students enrolled in the class were provided by the university's institutional research office. The number of views for most instructional videos was measured to be about 75% of the number of enrolled students. This percentage did not vary after the first week. Viewing dropped gradually over the length of a 30-min video, the final minutes were viewed about 75% as many times as the first few minutes. Reading engagement dropped precipitously with the length of the assigned reading. The final pages of a 13-page reading assignment had about 10% as many views as the first pages. The average view time of the final pages was about 20% of the first pages. A significantly higher percentage of students enrolled in the general education class were domestic, first generation, low income, and female compared to the general undergraduate population at the university.