Student Facing Dashboards: One Size Fits All?

This emerging technology report reviews a new development in educational technology, student-facing dashboards, which provide comparative performance feedback to students calculated by Learning Analytics-based algorithms on data generated from university students’ use of educational technology. Instructor- and advisor-facing dashboards emerged as one of the first direct applications of Learning Analytics, but the results from early implementations of these displays for students provide mixed results about the effects of their use. In particular, the “one-size-fits-all” design of many existing systems is questioned based on findings in related research on performance feedback and student motivation which has shown that various internal and external student-level factors affect the impact of feedback interventions, especially those using social comparisons. Integrating data from student information systems into underlying algorithms to produce personalized dashboards may mediate the possible negative effects of feedback, especially comparative feedback, and support more consistent benefits from the use of such systems.

[1]  Abraham P. Buunk,et al.  Social Comparison in the Classroom: A Review , 2008 .

[2]  Luis de Marcos,et al.  Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes , 2013, Comput. Educ..

[3]  Erik Duval,et al.  Learning Analytics Dashboard Applications , 2013 .

[4]  John Fritz,et al.  Classroom walls that talk: Using online course activity data of successful students to raise self-awareness of underperforming peers , 2011, Internet High. Educ..

[5]  Edward R. Tufte,et al.  Envisioning Information , 1990 .

[6]  J. Hattie,et al.  The Power of Feedback , 2007 .

[7]  P. Winne,et al.  Feedback and Self-Regulated Learning: A Theoretical Synthesis , 1995 .

[8]  Abelardo Pardo,et al.  Data2U: scalable real time student feedback in active learning environments , 2016, LAK.

[9]  Alyssa Friend Wise,et al.  Designing pedagogical interventions to support student use of learning analytics , 2014, LAK.

[10]  Stephen J. Aguilar.  Perceived Motivational Affordances: Capturing and Measuring Students' Sense-Making Around Visualizations of their Academic Achievement Information. , 2016 .

[11]  J. Suls,et al.  Social comparison: Contemporary theory and research. , 1991 .

[12]  B. Koester,et al.  Patterns of Gendered Performance Difference in Introductory STEM Courses , 2016, 1608.07565.

[13]  L. Festinger.  A Theory of Social Comparison Processes , 1954 .

[14]  Matthew D. Pistilli,et al.  Course signals at Purdue: using learning analytics to increase student success , 2012, LAK.

[15]  T. McKay,et al.  Computer-Tailored Student Support in Introductory Physics , 2015, PloS one.

[16]  Katrien Verbert,et al.  Trends and issues in student-facing learning analytics reporting systems research , 2017, LAK.

[17]  Stephen J. Aguilar,et al.  Game-Inspired Design , 2015, Games Cult..

[18]  Jan Marco Leimeister,et al.  Gamification , 2013, Business & Information Systems Engineering.

[19]  Jesse Fox,et al.  Assessing the effects of gamification in the classroom: A longitudinal study on intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort, and academic performance , 2015, Comput. Educ..

[20]  B. Major,et al.  Responses to upward and downward social comparisons: The impact of esteem-relevance and perceived control , 1991 .

[21]  S. Spencer,et al.  Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance , 1999 .

[22]  Linda Corrin,et al.  How do students interpret feedback delivered via dashboards? , 2015, LAK.

[23]  Robert A. Nash,et al.  Supporting Learners' Agentic Engagement With Feedback: A Systematic Review and a Taxonomy of Recipience Processes , 2017 .

[24]  Eva Durall,et al.  Learning Analytics as a Metacognitive Tool , 2014, CSEDU.

[25]  Steven Lonn,et al.  Issues, challenges, and lessons learned when scaling up a learning analytics intervention , 2013, LAK '13.

[26]  E. Duval.  Attention please!: learning analytics for visualization and recommendation , 2011, LAK.

[27]  Gabriel Reimers,et al.  Student Focused Dashboards - An Analysis of Current Student Dashboards and What Students Really Want , 2015, CSEDU.

[28]  Kimberly E. Arnold.  Signals: Applying Academic Analytics. , 2010 .

[29]  Katheryn R. Christy,et al.  Leaderboards in a virtual classroom: A test of stereotype threat and social comparison explanations for women's math performance , 2014, Comput. Educ..

[30]  Steven Lonn,et al.  A Learning Management System-Based Early Warning System for Academic Advising in Undergraduate Engineering , 2014 .