Abstract:

In higher education, learning management systems (LMS) are increasingly used to support web-enhanced, blended, or online teaching and learning. These systems store various data on student activities and interactions (e.g., progress, grades, completions, comparisons with the group's achievement). Learning analytics dashboards (LADs) make these data accessible to students. The objective of this study is to explore whether the use of a LAD to monitor such data can have a motivational impact on student learning in LMS, and whether it can promote regular study and better performance on final exams. Empirical research was conducted among 319 students at the Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana, who use the Moodle LMS as part of their blended learning in all courses. They used the LearnerScript LAD to monitor their performance in online activities. Student responses were collected by means of a survey in the form of a questionnaire about their use of the LAD and its motivational potential. The results show that most respondents tracked their LAD data and found them useful. However, the most motivating element detected was still the in-person encouragement by their teachers. Furthermore, rather than displays of numeric values of their achievements, they prefer a display of the percentages of their completed course assignments and deadline reminders presented in a single block. These results emphasize that transparency in displays of students' achievements increases their motivation for study. Moreover, such data, generated automatically from the analytical capabilities of LMS, reduce the teachers’ burden of providing such feedback to each student individually.

Keywords:

Learning Analytics, Dashboards, Performance feedback, Higher education, Motivation, Academic performance.