Evaluating the student performance prediction and action framework through a learning analytics intervention study

Abstract

Learning analytics intervention (LAI) studies aim to identify at-risk students early during an academic term using predictive models and facilitate educators to provide effective interventions to improve educational outcomes. A major impediment to the uptake of LAI is the lack of access to LAI infrastructure by educators to pilot LAI, which typically requires substantial institution-wide efforts and investment to collect related data sets and develop accurate predictive models that identify at-risk students and also provide tools to facilitate interventions. This paper presents a novel LAI framework, termed Student Performance Prediction and Action (SPPA), that facilitates educators to seamlessly provide LAIs in their courses avoiding the need for large-scale institution-wide efforts and investments. Educators develop course-specific predictive models using historical course assessment data. In learning analytics, providing effective interventions is a challenge. SPPA utilises pedagogy principles in course design and interventions to facilitate effective interventions by providing insights into students’ risk levels, gaps in students’ knowledge, and personalised study/revision plans addressing knowledge gaps. SPPA was evaluated in a large undergraduate course on its ability to predict at-risk students and facilitate effective interventions as well as its ease of use by academics. The results are encouraging with high performance of predictive models, facilitating effective interventions leading to significant improved educational outcomes with positive feedback and uptake by academics. With its advantages, SPPA has the potential to catalyse and influence wide-scale adoption in LAIs.