Higher Education Stakeholders’ Views on Learning Analytics Policy Recommendations for Supporting Study Success

Abstract

Learning analytics show promise to support study success in higher education. Hence, they are increasingly adopted in higher education institutions. This study examines higher education experts’ views on learning analytics utilisation to support study success. Our main research question was to investigate how ready higher education institutions are to adopt learning analytics. We derived policy recommendations from an international systematic review of the last five years of learning analytics research. Due to the lack of rigorous learning analytics research and adoption in Germany, this study focusses on the German university context and examines how ready German university stakeholders are to adopt learning analytics. In order to validate the policy recommendations, we conducted an interview study from June to August 2018 with 37 German higher education stakeholders. The majority of participants stated that their institutions required further resources in order to adopt learning analytics but were able to identify what these resources were in order for successful implementation.