Abstract
Learning analytics dashboards (LADs) can provide learners with insights about their study progress through visualisations of the learner and learning data. Despite their potential usefulness to support learning, very few studies on LADs have considered learners’ needs and have engaged learners in the process of design and evaluation. Aligning with that, there is a limited understanding of what specific student cohorts, in particular distance and online learners, may seek from LADs to effectively support their studies. In this study, we present findings from 21 interviews with undergraduate distance learners, mainly high performers, that aimed to capture student perceptions about the usefulness of specific LAD features and the factors that explain these perceptions. Our findings revealed that amongst the LAD features favoured by students was the potential to receive study recommendations, whereas comparison with peers was amongst the least favoured elements, unless informed by qualitative information. Factors including information trust, attitudes, age, performance and academic self-confidence were found to explain these perceptions.
Highlights
Assessment and physical attendance have traditionally played a central role in measuring students’ progress and level of engagement with their studies
RQ1: most and least useful elements of the Learning analytics dashboards (LADs) Given the limited research on student-facing LADs and the fact that this study’s participants did not have routine access to the tool, it was difficult to anticipate whether participants would voice any concerns over how or why the university uses their data
Overall reaction to the LAD The extent to which participants either highlighted the advantages of the LAD or suggested its improvement. Despite such a uniformly positive attitude towards the collection and processing of student data, our analysis revealed that the perceived usefulness of the different elements of the LAD varied between participants
Summary
Assessment and physical attendance have traditionally played a central role in measuring students’ progress and level of engagement with their studies. These days, following a progressive move to blended and online learning, many universities are starting to collect and store other kinds of real-time evidence on students’ day-to-day learning and engagement, including, among others, their interaction with the course website, usage of the library and learning materials, past grades, timeliness of assignment submissions (Broughan & Prinsloo, 2020). LADs are viewed as a promising way of facilitating self-regulated learning (e.g., Rienties et al, 2018; Schumacher & Ifenthaler, 2018), which refers to the students’ ability to set goals for their own learning, as well as monitor, control and adjust their behaviour to achieve them (Sedrakyan et al, 2020). Additional emerging evidence suggests that having access to a LAD has a positive impact on students’ grades, motivation to study and retention behaviour (de Quincey et al, 2019; Jivet et al, 2021)
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