The relationship between student performance and reading behavior in open ebook assessment

Digitized learning materials are a core part of modern education and also can offer insight into the learning behavior of high and low performing students. The topic of predicting student characteristics has gained a lot of attention in recent years, with applications ranging from affect to performance and at-risk student prediction. In this paper, we examine students reading behavior using a digital textbook system while taking an open ebook test from the perspective of performance and identifying strategies that are used by both high and low performing learners. We create models to predict the performance of learners before the start of the assessment and extract reading behavior characteristics employed before and after the start of the assessment in a higher education setting. It was found that 1) strategies, such as: revising and previewing are indicators of how a learner will perform in an open ebook assessment; and 2) low performing students take advantage of the open ebook policy of the assessment and employ a strategy of searching for information during the assessment.