Abstract
<p>Learning Analytics (LA) approaches in Blended Learning (BL) research is becoming an established field. In the light of previous critiqued toward LA for not being grounded in theory, the General Data Protection and a renewed focus on individuals’ integrity, this review aims to explore the use of theories, the methodological and analytic approaches in educational settings, along with surveying ethical and legal considerations. The review also maps and explores the outcomes and discusses the pitfalls and potentials currently seen in the field. Journal articles and conference papers were identified through systematic search across relevant databases. 70 papers met the inclusion criteria: they applied LA within a BL setting, were peer-reviewed, full-papers, and if they were in English. The results reveal that the use of theoretical and methodological approaches was disperse, we identified approaches of BL not included in categories of BL in existing BL literature and suggest these may be referred to as hybrid blended learning, that ethical considerations and legal requirements have often been overlooked. We highlight critical issues that contribute to raise awareness and inform alignment for future research to ameliorate diffuse applications within the field of LA.</p>
Highlights
1.1 The emergence of learning analyticsGiven the wealth and complexity of learning, learning sciences have become an interdisciplinarity domain that includes cognitive, educational, social and computer science among others
To discern the positioning of the articles in terms of their relation to Blended Learning (BL), we analysed the articles with regards to how blended learning was used throughout the articles, in particular how frequent the authors refer to blended learning, their definition, description and use of theory
BL literature [e.g. 37, 39] have identified three common ways in which explorations of blended learning delivery may vary: blended instruction, blended distribution, as identified in [14, 15] or blended pedagogies [54]. Going through these descriptions, we found that studies could displayed a combination of blended instruction and blended distribution; i.e. when a section of the course is provided fully f2f, followed by the remainder offered fully online [79] or reversed: a course is delivered fully online and fully f2f [49]
Summary
1.1 The emergence of learning analyticsGiven the wealth and complexity of learning, learning sciences have become an interdisciplinarity domain that includes cognitive, educational, social and computer science among others. In LA and BL research, as in other educational research, the main aim is to support students to succeed with their education Such effort can be demonstrated by including theory that provides guidance for how to understand, operationalise, measure and interpret for example students’ engagement in learning. If the approaches and applications of BL, theories from learning perspectives and how these are operationalised are lacking, and self-reports and traces data are not correlating, this decreases the value of the contributions in the field of LA. The existing reviews on LA research have not taken contributions into account, such approach is critical, as if applications of BL, theories from learning perspectives and how these are operationalised are insufficient or lacking, the contributions becomes unclear
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
