Regresar

Beyond Numbers: Exploring the Qualitative Dimension of a Learning Analytics Dashboard’s Usefulness

Abstract:

Learning Analytics dashboards provide reflection and decision-making opportunities for teachers and students. When it comes to evaluating dashboards, most studies use a mix of quantitative methods to understand behavior and qualitative methods such as interviews and focus groups to understand needs and insights. One limitation of the latter is that they usually imply a small sample size due to the large amount of work it demands in transcribing, reading, coding, and analyzing the information. This study challenges this limitation by presenting an in-depth exploration of the qualitative aspect involved in evaluating the perceived usefulness of an academic counseling system. Although a mixed methods approach was adopted, this study, that involved 113 teachers, places particular emphasis on the qualitative component, shedding light on unique insights that enrich the understanding of the user’s experience. The quantitative information gathered through a questionnaire allowed us to find statistical differences before and after the system implementation. The qualitative information in the same questionnaire, provided feedback on the reason why they liked the new changes. The approached used, allowed us to reach more users and analyze in a fastest way, allowing us to have strong reasons too keep the proposed design. These were mainly attributed to visualization and interaction aspects.