Abstract:

Curriculum improvement is a critical element of program quality assurance in higher education. In recent years, education researchers have explored ways to use analytics in support of curriculum renewal. In this literature review, we synthesize two bodies of related literature, curriculum analytics and teaching analytics, to understand curriculum improvement processes at both the program level and course level. Our analysis reveals relationships among these bodies of literature within the ecosystem of analytics, teacher inquiry, and student success. We also note that most existing research is aimed at understanding the prospects and challenges of technical infrastructures, not on the expectations or experiences of the instructors or administrators expected to use the analytics. Future research should expand to consider stakeholders’ perspectives when designing tools to support curriculum improvement; it should also recognize the value of collaborative teacher inquiry in curriculum improvement, by designing tools that support data-centered problem-solving in service of shared planning.

Keywords:

curriculum analytics, teaching analytics, teacher inquiry, curriculum redesign, higher education.