How can we use data analytics to improve educational outcomes? In what ways can we use data analytics to improve learning and teaching practices? Do you have any links that one can use to pull up literature review on data analytics or learning technologies?
Update: As pointed out, I needed to have specified the educational outcomes as this is a broad word. I will narrow it down to critical thinking and performance on test. I understand that performance on test can capture skills including but not limited to computational skills, problem solving skills, analytical skill and comprehension. So, how do we use technology to track if students are making progress in developing such skills? Thank you all for contributing!
Dear Neba, as mentioned by Michael above, KNOWING the outcome goals ... helps one to 'ask better questions'. Where, 'Outcomes are defined as changes in the behaviour, relationships, activities, or actions of the people, groups, and organizations with whom a program works directly' you are proposing the use of data analytics, that seeks to mine data related to a host of variables, as mentioned in the definition. Wishing you every success in your research.
Neba:
You asked a very interesting question that many higher education institutions are also asking. Here's a study that looked at students' Learning Management System activity and its relationship to their success in an online course using "big" data. The researchers proposed a framework given the latter results that can be used for helping students achieve their learning outcomes more successfully:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262320976_Predicting_non-traditional_student_learning_outcomes_using_data_analytics_-_a_pilot_research_study
I extend best wishes for every success in your research.
Many thanks,
Debra
Article Predicting non-traditional student learning outcomes using d...
Part of the challenge is to KNOW your outcome goals. Many academic programs have no idea, or the ideas are vague. See my paper linked below which addresses how outcome goals should be established and used in curriculum development.
Article The integration of technology and language instruction to en...
Dear Neba, as mentioned by Michael above, KNOWING the outcome goals ... helps one to 'ask better questions'. Where, 'Outcomes are defined as changes in the behaviour, relationships, activities, or actions of the people, groups, and organizations with whom a program works directly' you are proposing the use of data analytics, that seeks to mine data related to a host of variables, as mentioned in the definition. Wishing you every success in your research.
"data analytics" is a strange phrase that means different things to different people. I am not sure if people use it just to sound different from "data analysis" but if this is what you mean many schools of education have large groups of people (and have for decades) doing research on how to use data to help education. It would be worth looking at these web pages. Many school systems allow data to be tracked across years and this has been very helpful.
Hello Neba,
Very interesting how formulated the question.
Even agreeing to our friend Daniel Wright about what does the term data analysis, I will take the risk to say something.
The data analysis can be used:
- To see if the educational objectives are being achieved;
-to measure which abilities and skills students are acquiring or not;
-to compare our institution to the other;
-to see how factors associated with learning such as school climate, socioeconomic levels of students, organizational climate, etc. or others according to our interest, interfere with student learning;
-to measure the "school effect" and the value of an institution on their students;
-to measure the equity of education systems;
-to measure the academic performance of students;
-to monitor the performance and progress of students over time; ...
Some examples.
In our case here in Belo Horizonte (BRA) We are concerned with assessing which our students skills are building, keep track of whether the educational objectives for each year are being achieved and help schools monitor student performance to encourage more qualified educational interventions (mainly for students of low performance) from standard models evaluation. The characteristics of our country (high social inequalities) also have an interest too grating on the issue of educational equity and related factors, particularly those relating to cultural and economic backgrounds of students.
Then it will depend on what interests you most know but certainly a good database on factors and variables of interest you can help a lot.
For us has been particularly useful to work with educational indicators of factors that concern us, how these factors interrelate to each other, what weight have on student performance, whether the expected objectives are being achieved, what skills our students are achieving or may not have and how and why some schools succeed and others do not.
But from my experience, a good design of what matters to you, a good database and the right questions (which will dictate the studies to be made) can help you understand how things happen and help in decision-making, certainly.
It's an interesting question that we could take a wide range of responses from the experience of instructors or teachers.
Have an intuitive sense of what is or what a student knows is very different to be sure of what is happening in the student or objectives achieved.
For example when I use the Forums and reviewed at end of the forum, I note that the intensity and quality of participation is lower than when I make a quantitative feedback indicating who and how many times have participated in the forums.
And this is just one example.
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Es una pregunta interesante y que nos podría llevar a un gran ábanico de respuestas desde la experiencia de los instructores o profesores.
Tener una percepción intuitiva de lo que es o lo que sabe un estudiante es muy diferente a tener certeza de lo que en el estudiante esta ocurriendo o que objetivos ha alcanzado.
Por ejemplo cuando utilizo Foros y reviso la participación al final del foro, observo que la intensidad y calidad de la participación es menor que cuando hago una retroalimentación cuantitativa indicando quienes y cuantas veces han participado de los foros.
Y esto es tan solo un ejemplo.
Hello Colleagues - I've enjoyed reading these very interesting examples. This is another fairly simple example of how we used student data tn the UKOU to attach a 'probability of success' (pps) to our new students on entry. The pps varied from 83% chance of success to 9% for one unfortunate student - the average was 53%.
We used this pps to divide our entry into two groups, balanced for pps, and then focused extra support on one group, keeping the other as a control. We were able to show a distinct increase in retention in that group over the other. There's a paper on my website www.ormondsimpson.com - ''PREDICTING SUCCESS IN IN OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING'.
The process has now been extended to course modules to predict what a module pass rate should be given the entry characteristics of its students. The UKOU is using that to identify modules where the pass rate is much less than it should be so that module writers can approached to try to fix things. But iIdon't think any paper has been published on that yet.
If the use of the systematization of information were frequent in education could provide a lot of useful data. I refer not only to the systematization of information for the course of each person, but of information that could be useful for other teachers in other courses. At the moment I made an evaluation of the economics course using as a resource an article and 5 students looked at a very common word in our native language, apalabra supposedly in the undergraduate level that are should be in your daily baggage.
This information could be useful for other teachers in other courses but obviously in a larger universe of students.
The information from the point of view of Data Analytics should be as a system and not in isolated areas, and a lot of effort needs to be persistent.
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Si el uso de la sistematización de información fuera frecuente en la educación podría proveer una gran cantidad de datos muy útiles. No solo me refiero a la sistematización de información para el curso de cada quién, sino de información que podría ser útil para otros profesores de otros cursos. En estos momentos he tomado una evaluación del curso de economía utilizando como recurso un artículo y 5 estudiantes consultaron por una palabra muy común en la lengua nativa nuestra, una apalabra que supuestamente en el nivel de pregrado que se encuentran debería estar en su bagaje cotidiano.
Esta información podría ser útil para otros profesores de otros cursos pero evidentemente en un universo mayor de estudiantes.
La información desde el punto de vista de Data Analytics debe ser como un sistema y no estar en areas aisladas, además de un gran esfuerzo requiere ser persistente.
He remembered another situation when blended teaches a course in which students participate in Discussions. Each week students meet with their participation, but check the times they entered the Discussion to publish their posts I realized that usuallyThey did near the end of the week. This allowed me to modify some rules so that the times of publication of posts from students more homogeneous and helped a lot in a continuous conversation during each week.
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Recordaba también otra situación cuando dictaba un curso blended, en el que los estudiantes participan de Discusiones. Cada semana los estudiantes cumplían con su participación, pero al revisar los momentos en los que ellos ingresaban a la Discusión para publicar sus posts me dí cuenta que usualmente lo hacían casi al terminar la semana. Esto me permitió modificar algunas reglas para que los tiempos de las publicaciones de los posts de los estudiantes sea más homogénea y ayudo mucho en una conversación más continua durante cada semana.
First of all you will need to be using a syllabus with objectives that address the skills you want to measure. If your syllabus objectives do not address the skills you are measuring, then your test will not be able to provide evidence of content validity.
Once you are satisfied that the syllabus objectives address the skills, then you need to ensure that there is a direct match between the syllabus objectives and the items on the measurement instrument that is being crafted (a test, or a rubric)
Use a data analysis software. Tell the software which items measure each construct on the instrument. For example: Items 1, 12, 15, and 25 measure “critical thinking skills”
If you are using objective type items, then you need to select a software which reads students' responses and include capability for this type of analysis.
If you are using subjective type items, then you may need to mark the papers, input the student scores and then run the analysis
The analysis will tell you students’ scores for critical thinking skills (scores from items 1, 12, 15, and 25 combined). You will then be able to tell the level of student achievement on the construct. You can store this data and compare it with the data from different periods over time. The data can be used to inform your planning.
You will appreciate, however, the need for valid and reliable data in decision making. Therefore, every effort must be made to ensure that scores yielded by your measurement instruments are fit for purpose.
The data is composed of the past information on how education was conducted with the models used at that time ,the result it measured based on the goals and objectives to be achieved within a certain time frame. if the results intended is not achieved then analysis is done to find out what went long this data analysis ,it also called Data analytics that give the postmortem what happened and the relevant correction to be made to improve the education standards
1. Find the root cause of the problem ,for example the product (graduates)of the system of education can not feit the job market .
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