How patterns of students dashboard use are related to their achievement and self-regulatory engagement

Abstract

The aim of student-facing dashboards is to support learning by providing students with actionable information and promoting self-regulated learning. We created a new dashboard design aligned with SRL theory, called MyLA, to better understand how students use a learning analytics tool. We conducted sequence analysis on students' interactions with three different visualizations in the dashboard, implemented in a LMS, for a large number of students (860) in ten courses representing different disciplines. To evaluate different students' experiences with the dashboard, we computed chi-squared tests of independence on dashboard users (52%) to find frequent patterns that discriminate students by their differences in academic achievement and self-regulated learning behaviors. The results revealed discriminating patterns in dashboard use among different levels of academic achievement and self-regulated learning, particularly for low achieving students and high self-regulated learners. Our findings highlight the importance of differences in students' experience with a student-facing dashboard, and emphasize that one size does not fit all in the design of learning analytics tools.