Exploring the benefits and challenges of learning analytics in higher education institutions: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Purpose The potential capabilities and benefits that learning analytics can provide are not fully utilized. A current stream of research suggests that learning analytics has more to offer for continuous improvement of higher education institutions. This study aims to explore the opportunities that data analytics stand to offer higher education and the challenges that plays down its role, adoption and usage in different areas of higher education institutions. Design/methodology/approach This study adopts a systematic literature review approach in answering the research questions. The critical role of learning analytics and the exploratory nature of research questions justify the use of systematic literature review. The current study used systematic research process adapted and presented by Hallinger (2013) to be used in social sciences in general and in educational leadership and management in particular. A standard process of finding relevant articles and examining reference lists is followed using articles from higher education which is the research context. Findings An examination of the literature showed that the majority of studies within the sample of articles are empirical representing 53 per cent, 32 per cent are conceptual, while only 15 per cent of the articles are a systematic literature review. Results also show that 58 per cent of the articles are teaching and learning related, 34 per cent are management related, while only 8 per cent are research related. Several challenges and opportunities of learning analytics in the three areas highlighted are presented and discussed. Originality/value The benefits and challenges of learning analytics are numerous and scattered in the literature. In this study, a typology related to different educational domains is developed to shed light on the benefits and challenges of learning analytics within particular higher education areas that are relevant to specific stakeholders. Benefits and challenges of learning analytics are classified into being management related, teaching and learning related and research related.

Discovering disciplinary differences: blending data sources to explore the student online behaviors in a University English course

“…However, revealing such factors through the self-reported surveys from students may be difficult, as these surveys may not consider contextual factors in a detailed manner. This argument concurs with that of Alfy, Gómez, and Dani (2018) that learning analytics is context specific. This result shows that a blended data approach to studying the online behavior of students is feasible and beneficial.…”

Exploring the relationship of university students’ educational variables and the degree of their use of virtual social networks

“…Their efforts proved that the social media usage has negative impact on academic activities (Giunchiglia et al, 2018). There are some pieces of evidence which indicates that higher education institutes which are interested in revealing information about students who are excessively involved in such networks (Fogel and Nehmad, 2009;El Alfy et al, 2019). For instance, "Thoughts on Facebook" published by the University of Cornel was aimed at informing students about responsible and accountable use of online social networking (Pempek et al, 2009).…”

Critical Lens in Learning Analytics Research: A Systematic Literature Review

“…The works that investigated the benefits and challenges in LA in general were Avella et al (2016), Viberg et al (2018), Banihashem et al (2018), Alfy et al (2019); and related to LA policies was Tsai and Gasevic (2017). Avella et al (2016) revealed that several works on LA used data mining to predict, cluster and discover student models and emphasized the separation of data from human judgment to analyze data, and that these benefited course offerings, curriculum development and students learning outcomes.…”

“…As benefits, the authors pointed out that LA could increase students engagement, improve learning outcomes, identify academically at-risk students, and provide real-time feedback and personalization of learning. Some of the benefits presented by Alfy et al (2019) were monitoring and predicting students' performance and helping academically at-risk students to succeed. Among the challenges identified was concerns about ethical use of data and data security.…”