Examining instructor use of learning analytics

Abstract

This study takes an instructor-centric approach to Learning Analytic (LA) research by analyzing instructor use of the LA within an educational streaming video platform called TrACE. The goal of this study is to understand how instructors naturally interact with analytic dashboards through an empirical analysis. To accomplish this, data of 14 instructors from three institutions that used TrACE from Spring 2015 to Spring 2016 was collected. Data was analyzed to identify frequency of analytic visits, duration of analytic use, differences in analytic use, and differences in use between semesters. Instructors demonstrated preferences for some analytics over others, but the majority of teachers generate short sessions that may not allow for in-depth exploration in analytics. Finally, instructor activity is not always consistent between semesters. Focus groups were conducted to explore motivations behind these findings and future work includes developing LA that address discovered issues.