A Digital Distance Learning Critical Success Factors Model for Conducting Learning Analytics Research

Abstract

A recent EDUCAUSE horizon report describes that learning analytics is one of the leading technologies and practices that will impact the future of teaching and learning. The growing presence of online delivery modes has accelerated the advancement of learning analytics (LA) and the use of data in education. Despite huge volumes of LA research publications, a systematic literature review reveals that LA research faces several challenges, including a lack of good pedagogical models that will further advance theoretical development in understanding relationships between the effectiveness and learning outcomes and the complexity of learning processes. Recently, Guzmán‑Valenzuela et al. claimed that LA tends to underplay the complexity of Learning processes. Their bibliometric analysis of recent literature identified several critical concerns of LA research, including oversimplification of the learning process and lack of good pedagogical models to illuminate students’ learning processes and outcomes. This paper aims to tackle these critical concerns. The complexities of teaching and learning processes are due to multiple interdependent factors that affect learning outcomes directly and indirectly. This paper aims to provide an integrated, foundational pedagogical model that is complete and parsimonious for further advancing e-learning analytics research.