Beyond quiz scores: LMS behavioral metrics and their association with summative performance in higher education

Radovan, Marko (author)

This study investigates how ongoing low-stakes quizzes and other learning management system (LMS)-based activities relate to performance on a summative course quiz in higher education. We analyzed course data from 37 first-year undergraduate students. Data were extracted from Moodle and covered weekly quiz scores across ten quizzes, number of attempts, attempt duration, latency between quiz release and first attempt, and student engagement with course materials. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, and partial correlations were used to examine these relationships. The findings consistently point in the same direction: when and how often students engaged with quizzes mattered far more than how well they scored on them. Longer latency—that is, delaying the first quiz attempt after release—was strongly negatively associated with final quiz performance, while students who attempted quizzes more frequently and completed them more quickly tended to perform better. Among course materials, viewing the core lecture handouts showed the strongest positive association with final scores, while additional reading, Moodle lesson completion, and Padlet participation showed weaker but statistically significant positive associations. Topic materials were not significantly associated with final quiz performance. Partial correlation analyses confirmed that latency, number of attempts, and handout views each remained independently associated with final performance after controlling for average quiz score, suggesting these behavioral indicators capture something that raw accuracy alone does not. These results align with testing-effect and self-regulated learning research and point to a clear practical implication: course designs that encourage early, repeated engagement with structured core materials are likely to support better student outcomes than those that rely primarily on quiz scores as a proxy for learning.

• Language: English
• Keywords: formative assessment, low-stakes quizzing, Moodle, learner engagement, self-regulated learning, testing effect, higher education, academic performance
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 13.05.2026
• Year: 2026
• Number of pages: Str. 1-14
• Numbering: [issue] 5, [article] 772
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-182593
• UDC: 378
• ISSN on article: 2227-7102
• DOI: 10.3390/educsci16050772
• COBISS.SI-ID: 278512899
• Publication date in RUL: 18.05.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Education sciences
• Shortened title: Educ. sci.
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2227-7102
• COBISS.SI-ID: 520257817

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: visoko šolstvo, preverjanje znanja, formativno spremljanje znanja, učna angažiranost, samoregulacijsko učenje, učna uspešnost

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0174
• Name: Pedagoško-andragoške raziskave - Učenje in izobraževanje za kakovostno življenje v skupnosti
• Acronym: P5-0174