Are there any tutorials about incorporating a database in WordPress?

See https://developer.www.ads-software.com/reference/classes/wpdb/ and https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Database_Description

• This reply was modified 3 years, 10 months ago by Steven Stern (sterndata).

This is a start. Thanks.

There is a need for online courses. Every course would have two tables.

One table has course questions for each chapter. The second table is comprised of the student’s ID, links to the course question table, student’s answers, etc.

Is there an easy way to start with a new, blank database, then create tables, then create fields in each table?

Sure. You can create a new wpdb object pointing to a new database.

Have you looked at the learning management plugins? You might find that this wheel has already been built.

Thanks for the useful link!